


The Devil Wears Flannel (It Belongs to Sam)

by QuincyK



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone is protective because that's my jam, Fluff, M/M, Protective Lucifer, Protective Sam, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 20:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuincyK/pseuds/QuincyK
Summary: When the cage finally breaks under the pressure of Michael and Lucifer, no one expects that God would have finally taken steps to keep the world safe. Now Lucifer is with the Winchesters, his grace bound to the point that he is practically human. Just add that to the long list of things the brothers and Castiel have to deal with now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Samifer Big Bang and it has been a ride, let me tell you. 
> 
> The art for this fic is done by kuwlshadow - http://kuwlshadow.tumblr.com/post/152103737603/title-the-devil-wears-flannel-it-belongs-to-sam. Please go look at it, she's worked hard on it and it looks good :)
> 
> I want to thank River_of_Dreams (I wish I knew how to link things, that would be ideal) for writing my favorite Samifer fic called Where Are We Going From Here. Reading their in-depth study of Lucifer as a character helped me realize that maybe writing him isn't impossible. My fic isn't near as good as theirs, please stop what you're doing and go read it right now. 
> 
> This fic is written from multiple POV and I think its pretty clear who it is in every section, but let me know if not.
> 
> EDIT: If anyone knows how to link things in this notes section, please let me know, I've seen other people do it PLEASE HELP

Charlie hadn’t been a hunter long. But with her adventures in Oz and her recent trip overseas in search of the Book, she had picked up a couple habits. Such as keeping a knife under her pillow and a gun on whatever surface was closest to her (she had an irrational fear of it going off in her sleep if she kept it with the knife, even with the safety on).

 

However, she wasn’t expecting to need her weapons in the Bunker. The boys had assured her that it was warded against “all the evil sons of bitches out there” and besides, Castiel had decided to stay the night after their pizza celebration. So she was warded in a secret bunker with a newly repowered angel.

 

Which is why, when something that sounded very much like a boom of thunder rang through the halls, it took her longer than it should have to grab a weapon and open her door.

 

When she stuck her head out the door, Sam and Dean were already at the end of the hallway, each with a gun in their hands. Apparently, they knew to keep weapons close regardless of how safe they were supposed to be.

 

“Go back to your room, Charlie,” Dean hissed as she came up next to them. He was in a t-shirt and boxers. Sam at least was wearing sweatpants.

 

“No chance, bitch,” she whisper-yelled back. Sam sent them both a glare over his shoulder.

 

“Fine, but stay behind us,” Dean grumbled. He and Sam began to creep around the corridor, making their way to the center of the Bunker. Charlie had no problem following that order.

 

As they neared the entrance to the main room, they heard a gravelly voice call out, “Dean, Sam, it’s safe, for now. But you need to see this.” They all exchanged glances and made their way into the room, moving with less caution and lowering their weapons.

 

As they came into view of the angel, they saw he was crouching next to what looked like a body. When he stood up and moved out of the way she heard Sam make a strangled noise and Dean swear loudly, raising his gun again to point it at the man on the ground.

 

He didn’t look very threatening. He was just laying there. She didn’t even think he was conscious. He was white (unhealthily pale, if she’s being honest), maybe late thirties-early forties, with mussed up blonde hair. He was wearing jeans and a raggedy green shirt.

 

Still, she eased into a defensive position, bringing up her knife since the boys seemed disturbed by him. He shouldn’t have been able to get in, regardless, so he was probably dangerous. Castiel looked like a cat had just dropped a dead mouse at his feet. A mouse that may turn into a rattlesnake at any moment. 

 

“He’s unconscious. He won’t wake up for some time.”

 

“Are you sure?” asked Sam, voice slightly shaking.

 

“What the hell, Cas?! How’d he get in here?” Dean demanded angrily.

 

Cas gave Dean a Look before turning his gaze back to the man on the floor. “Yes, Sam, I’m sure. I don’t know how he got in, only that his arrival was accompanied by a bright flash of light and a power so heavy that I couldn’t move until it ended.”

 

“Not to mention the sonic boom,” Charlie felt the need to point out.

 

“Sam, get the holy oil,” Dean barked.

 

“That won’t be necessary,” Castiel stated. He looked back at the three of them with a look of utter confusion and consternation. “He’s human.”

 

“What?!” Dean hissed, while Sam continued to stare in shock. Charlie looked at all of them in turn. Apparently, whoever this guy was hadn’t been human before.

 

“He’s human,” Cas stated again. “Or at least as close as an angel can be without having their grace stolen. There’s barely a flicker of his own grace left inside of him. It doesn’t appear to be regenerating either. I believe simple human restraints will be enough to hold him.”

 

“Well I’m not gonna take any chances,” said Dean. Castiel looked like he was about to argue before he closed his mouth and nodded. “That may be wise. We can’t be certain how long this will last.”

 

“Wait, Cas…” Sam started, overcoming the shake in his voice. “If he’s here... “

 

“Where’s the other dick?” Dean finished the thought.

 

“That’s a good question. I’ll investigate.”

 

He glanced down at the unconscious man again before fixing the brothers with a stern frown. “Do not do anything to him until I return. Be careful.”

 

Then he was gone.

 

There was a beat of silence before Dean walked slowly over to the man on the floor and prodded him with his foot. When there was no response, he turned back to them. “Sam, holy oil. Go.”

 

Sam seemed to snap out of some sort of daze and ran off towards the garage.

 

Once he was out of sight, Dean ran a hand over his face and slumped into a nearby chair, half-heartedly keeping his gun trained on the man.

 

“Dean?” Charlie asked, coming closer and getting a good look at their guest. He didn’t look particularly scary. “You guys are freaking me out. Who is he?”

 

“Lucifer,” Dean said in a low voice, face grim. “That’s Lucifer.”

 

* * *

 

Castiel stood in the center of Stull Cemetery, his trenchcoat blowing slightly around him while he eyed the spot where Sam had opened the door to the Cage all those years ago. There was nothing to see with his physical eyes, of course. But the angel was looking into multiple planes of reality, swirling and crackling all around the place. There was definitely something wrong here but he wasn’t sure what. It was like listening to a symphony and hearing a sour note but being unable to determine the instrument that made it.

 

He sensed another presence enter the cemetery and stiffened.

 

“Castiel,” said a male voice. Turning, he saw a young dark skinned man, with short black hair and week old scruff on his face. He had only seen the vessel once before but he recognized the angel inside instantly.

 

“Hannah.” He kept his voice neutral and his stance defensive. He knew he wasn’t on very good terms with Heaven right now. But if Hannah had left her post then something must have happened on her end as well.

 

She tilted her head slightly, peering at him with intensity before her eyes widened. “You have your own grace!” she said in surprise. She even sounded pleased. Castiel felt himself relax a little. If she were able to be happy for him then perhaps things were not as bad as he had assumed.

 

“Yes, Metatron was keeping it hidden in one of his ‘lairs’,” He said carefully. He wasn’t as powerful as a Seraph anymore. A lot of his grace had been used up in the spell. He was now a little less powerful than when he first met Dean.

 

Her face turned sad. “You should not have taken him, Castiel. We could have gotten the location of your grace from him without such measures. You have made yourself unpopular with our family, yet again.”

 

He felt a flash of anger at her insinuation. Does she really think he would make a move against Heaven for such a selfish reason? “I did not do it for myself; he said he knew of a way to remove the Mark from Dean. I would not have had to resort to such actions if -” he bit off the rest of his sentence. Throwing around accusations and blame would only exasperate the situation.

“Why are you here, Hannah? Are you aware that something happened to the Cage?”

She immediately stiffened and nodded. “I assumed as much when Michael appeared in the garden with barely enough grace to be considered a Cupid.”

 

Castiel’s eyes widened at this information. “Michael is missing his grace as well? When did he appear?”

 

“Thirty-two minutes ago. He is still in the vessel of the youngest Winchester, although the boy’s soul appeared in his personal heaven at the same moment Michael did. When I left, Michael was still unconscious…” here she paused, looking concerned. It made sense. Angels did not usually lose consciousness the same way humans did.

 

“I left a guard on him and came to earth, looking for you.”

 

“Why me?” Castiel asked in confusion.

 

Hannah looked vaguely sheepish. “You were far more involved with the averted apocalypse than I. You have also travelled into the Cage and returned. I thought if anyone would have an idea of what was going on, it would be you.”

 

He shook his head. “No, that’s why I’m here. It seems that at the same time Michael appeared in Heaven, Lucifer appeared with the Winchesters and I. He has practically no grace at all,” he hurried to say when Hannah looked alarmed. “I’m guessing that whatever opened the Cage, also ensured the two of them would be harmless. Well, as harmless as they can be.”

 

Hannah nodded slowly. “And what of Sam Winchester? Is he in any danger?”

 

Castiel felt a surge of warmth for his sister. Even if she was not truly concerned for Sam’s well being, she knew Sam was his friend and so voiced concern. She had been touched with just the right amount of humanity to be able to run Heaven better than anyone else, Castiel thought.

 

“No, Lucifer is in his previous vessel. His grace is so diminished that I was not certain at first he still had any. I came here to investigate what could have possibly happened.”

 

She nodded, her strong jaw clenching. “You’re travelling there, aren’t you?” she asked warily.

 

“Yes.” Castiel said grimly. “Whatever was powerful enough to release Lucifer and Michael and reduce their grace must have left some sort of mark or evidence. We need to know what it was and what it wants.”

 

“I am coming with you,” Hannah sad, uneasy but determined.

 

He almost told her she didn’t need to. He had done this once before and did not require assistance. But it might be nice to have another angel at his back while he circled whatever remained of the Cage. Sometimes braver demons liked to sneak close.

 

“Very well,” he said. The next instant he dove into the folds between space, followed closely by Hannah.

 

* * *

 

Sam stared at the occupant of their dungeon with mixed feelings.

 

He felt marginally safe, considering Lucifer was still asleep (his head was tipped down onto his chest and wasn’t _that_ weird to watch), bound with Enochian inscribed handcuffs, surrounded by holy fire, and they had about twenty different sigils lining the walls to prevent him from leaving the room. Which was ironic. He never thought he would need that particular sigil. Usually he and Dean were trying to get angels as far away from themselves as possible.

 

Some obviously unstable part of him felt oddly relieved that this Lucifer was real and not the return of his hallucinations. Even with Dean, Cas, and Charlie being able to see him, it wasn’t until he had helped Dean move him to the dungeon that he was able to breathe easier. He could feel Lucifer’s solidity and the fact that Dean was interacting with him helped as well.

 

He knew he shouldn’t be grateful that Lucifer was real and out of the Cage. But at least he could fight him that way. He could only do so much when it was all in his head.

 

He didn’t look up as Dean walked in, dragging another chair, and plopped down next to him. “You sure you wanna be in here, Sammy?”

 

He thought about shooting his brother a look over the nickname, but he knew Dean only called him that when he was really worried. Or being a dick on purpose.

 

Sam was pretty sure it was worry this time.

 

“Yeah, I… I need to,” Sam tried to explain. “If I leave… I mean, I know this is real, but…”

 

Dean was quiet for a second and then he snorted. “I WISH this wasn’t real. I mean, dude, we have enough problems with the Mark of Cain, Rowena wandering around out there, and that crazy family that was after the Book. And hell, now Lucifer is back? Maybe Michael too?”

 

When it rains, it pours, Sam thought and then frowned. “Cas said that Lucifer has almost no juice left, though. It’s possible that wherever Michael is, if he’s not still in the Cage, he’s in the same boat.” 

 

“Here’s hoping,” Dean grumbled. “Where _is_ Cas, anyway? It’s been hours.”

 

Sam internally rolled his eyes at the obvious worry his brother had for the angel. “Dean, it’s only been one. I’d be surprised if he got back by morning if he’s looking for Michael.”

 

Dean mumbled under his breath and crossed his arms. After another pause, he looked at Sam out of the corner of his eye. “Do you think… I mean, what about Adam? You think he got out too?”

 

Sam could see the guilt heavy in his brother’s eyes and felt the same weight. Both of them felt like they had let down their youngest brother. But every time they discussed possibly doing something about Adam, they ran into the same problem. Even if they could find a way to pry open the Cage long enough to grab someone out, how could they be sure one of the archangels wouldn’t push their way out too?

 

Eventually they had just stopped talking about it. The musical hadn’t helped any. If anything, it had heaped more guilt on top of both of them when they didn’t recognize who the little actress was supposed to be.

 

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam sighed. “If he did… I’m not sure what kind of state he’d be in.”

 

There was a sound from the chair and both boys immediately snapped their attention to the former archangel.

 

He didn’t seem to be quite aware yet. He tried to move his hands and when he couldn’t, his fidgeting stopped. They watched as he slowly opened his eyes, staring at his shackles. Then he turned his head to each side, taking in the sigils covering the walls.

 

And then Sam was staring into sharp, ice blue eyes once again.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel was fast approaching the pocket dimension that the Cage occupied, Hannah a solid presence at his back. It was much easier this time than it had been when he made the journey to rescue Sam. Before, the Cage was a physical force, repelling him back, the power of the remaining seals wrapping around his vessel’s skin and trying to drag him away from it. He was only able to slip through because he was a seraph and, while insistent, the barriers were tailored to an archangel’s grace. It was the beauty of the design that the same force worked to keep everything inside from getting out with the same intensity.

 

But now he flew between the ragged edges of slashed magic and fractured planes, only meeting token resistance. The damage to the layers of protection around the Cage became more pronounced the closer they got, until they finally arrived at the epicenter. Behind him, he heard Hannah suck in a shocked breath.

 

The vibrating energy that had formed the ‘walls’ of the Cage was gone, tendrils of it floating free and occasionally sparking in short charges in the empty space that it had once occupied. Castiel carefully avoided the residual energy and focused instead on the swirl of magic that was weaving in around it. It wasn’t a physical thing, not really, but he could still see it. He could feel it in his grace.

 

“What is that? It feels...almost too warm.” Hannah had gone a little to his right, avoiding the energy sparks as he was.

 

“It appears to be some sort of spell,” Castiel said.

 

“I think… Castiel, I think it’s in Enochian,” she said in surprise.

 

He looked at her sharply and then went as close to a line of the spell as he could in order to study it. She was right, it appeared to be Enochian. He thought it was strange that the remnants of the spell were clinging to the sparks of the Cage wall. He followed a line as far as it went before finding another one and doing the same. He repeated the process, making his own observations, before Hannah spoke up again.

 

“Well I think we know why Michael and Lucifer have such little grace,” she noted.

 

Castiel nodded. The spell appeared to be one of intense binding, stronger than anything he had ever seen before. He was unsure of the exact nature or extent since all that remained were pieces of it.

 

“What I don’t understand is why someone would break them out of the Cage, only to bind them so thoroughly that it would make little difference whether they were free or not,” he murmured.

 

There was something else he had seen on a couple of fragments that didn’t make sense. In most magic, there were different types of spells, with basic underlying structures. One of the most used was an ‘If, Then’ type of spell, one that would only be activated should something happen to trigger it. He had seen what appeared to be indicators that this spell that had broken down the Cage was of this structure but that didn’t make any sense…

 

“Castiel!” He turned quickly, tensing for a fight at the alarm in Hannah’s voice, angel blade already sliding into his hand. 

 

Instead, he saw her looking between where the Cage used to be and the direction they had come from. He tilted his head at her in confusion when she met his eyes. “Look at the path of the destruction,” she urged.

 

After a moment, he cursed himself for not seeing it before, a habit he had picked up from the eldest Winchester. All of the wreckage of the seals were split and cracked. But they were spreading _away_ from the Cage.

 

“No one broke in,” she said.

 

“They broke _out_ ,” he said tersely.

 

He took off flying up through the layers of reality as fast as his wings could take him. He needed to get to Dean and Sam.

 

* * *

 

 

Lucifer felt weak. He didn’t particularly enjoy the feeling.

 

He also did not enjoy the sensation of ‘waking up’ which he supposed is what he was doing right now. It was strange to slowly become more aware of his surroundings when he was used to always being alert to his environment. Even when he thought he had made it back to almost full consciousness, his senses seemed dulled somehow.

 

It was only when he tried to reach around him with his grace that he registered why. He made a startled sound as he realized two things at once: he was somehow already in a vessel and his grace was practically non-existent. He wondered what had drained him to that point. He supposed he should be grateful that he had found a vessel to house him in this state, although he couldn’t remember convincing anyone to say yes. 

 

He raised a hand, to do what he didn’t remember, because as soon as he tried to move he realized he was chained.

 

He went very still. Chains usually meant enemies, though he didn’t remember being captured by anyone (he was getting tired of not remembering things). He certainly didn’t know of anyone _powerful_ enough to do so, although in his current state, it wouldn’t have been that difficult. The last thing he _did_ remember was Michael and the Cage.

 

He also belatedly noticed he felt warm. But it was different, not like the warmth of Michael’s grace that he had become so used to over the past half millennia, more like… fire.

 

Chains and fire, no doubt made by holy oil, he was sure. Someone didn’t trust him very much, apparently. Which means they knew who he was or at least that he was an angel. He didn’t know whether to feel irked or flattered.

 

He opened his eyes slowly, examining the shackles on his wrists with detached interest. They were scrawled with Enochian, which perhaps would have kept a lesser angel than himself from using their grace, but he wasn’t worried. As soon as his grace was back to normal he would make short work of them.

 

He felt the pressure of angel warding at the back of his mind and glanced at either side of his (temporary) prison. That was quite an impressive number of sigils. He decided to go with flattered.

 

When he finally decided to face his captors, that he had studiously ignored until he got an idea of his surroundings, he found himself looking into the wide open stare of his True Vessel.

 

He blinked once in surprise and then gave a soft smile. “Hello, Sam.”

 

The human let out a gust of air like Lucifer had punched him. He kept his face blank but Lucifer could see the fear in his eyes. He didn’t really like that. Sam had only ever looked at him with anger. Any fear had been for those he cared about, not of Lucifer in general. He wondered what had changed.

 

Instead of asking, he raised an eyebrow.

 

“It’s good to see you again, Sam. I’m glad you recognize me.”

 

At this, Sam looked confused. Before he could say anything though another voice said roughly, “No shit, you look like the same douchebag you always were.”

 

Lucifer turned his gaze to the older Winchester and barely held back a sneer. Michael’s vessel was much like Michael himself, eager and aggressive. He tilted his head in consideration. Something was different about Dean Winchester since the last time he was beating him to death. Lucifer couldn’t place it but it was almost familiar. Strange.

 

When he finally gave thought to the boy’s words, Lucifer looked down at himself and frowned. He recognized the clothes as those of his late vessel, Nick. But Nick should have burned up when Lucifer made the transition into Sam. He tried to brush the place in his mind where he had kept Nick’s consciousness and felt nothing. A quick inventory showed there was no human soul inside the vessel with him. His frown deepened. That shouldn’t be possible.

 

He made eye contact with Sam again. “I’m back with Nick, huh?” Sam nodded, still looking wary, and he hummed. “Interesting.” He couldn’t fathom how he had gotten into this situation or how the Winchester’s had found him so quickly.

 

“You don’t remember finding a vessel?” Sam asked, eyebrows furrowed.

 

“Not particularly, no,” Lucifer said dismissively. “So, how’d you boys find me? I’m sure you weren’t just hangin’ around the cemetery this whole time.”

 

Ah, there it was. The spark of annoyance in Sam’s expression. Perhaps if Lucifer pushed a little more...

 

“We didn’t find you, you dick. You just showed up, bang, all vesseled up and unconscious. How’d you manage that?” Dean growled.

 

If it wasn’t for the fact that Dean was obviously trying to divert Lucifer’s attention away from Sam in a gesture of brotherly protection, he may not have been so polite.

 

“Now didn’t I just tell Sam that I have no memory of finding a vessel? You should pay more attention, Dean.”

 

He turned away from the glower and gestured around the room with his head. “Nice, uh, place you got here,” he said with no small amount of disgust. “No chance you’d just, kinda, I don’t know… let me leave? Hate to see what it’d look like if you didn’t.”

 

It was a thinly veiled threat and both Winchesters glared at him. “Not likely, _Satan_.” Dean spat out. “You think we’re gonna let you walk out that door so you can jump start apocalypse 2.0? Not a chance. Besides, you don’t have any juice,” he finished.

 

Lucifer shot him a challenging look. “Eh, for now. How long do you think that’ll last?”

 

“I think your powerless state will persist much longer than you think,” said a deep voice behind them.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean turned at the sound of Cas’s voice. The angel strode forward and stopped just before entering the reach of the sigils.

 

“Castiel! I haven’t seen you since you swooped in and saved Sam. Well, you know. Part of him.”  Lucifer said with a small smirk. 

 

If possible, Cas stiffened even more. “That is not of import right now. Tell me how you and Michael escaped from the Cage,” he growled.

 

“What?” Dean yelled. He sensed Sam sitting straighter at the information. “I thought something let them out?”

 

Cas turned so he could address him. “That‘s what we assumed but the damage to the Cage extends outwards. Which shouldn’t be possible.” He turned back to the chained archangel and glared.

 

Lucifer was now wearing a full blown grin and Dean wanted nothing more than to beat it off him. 

 

“You’re right, Castiel. It isn’t possible for someone to break out of the Cage. Or, I should say, it isn’t possible for a _single_ someone to break out of the Cage.”

 

There was a beat of silence while everyone processed this. “What are you talking about?” Dean asked. “The Cage was MADE to hold archangels.”

 

“No…” Dean and Cas looked over at Sam. His brother seemed to understand. “The Cage was made to hold _Lucifer_ , and Lucifer only. It was built to withstand the assault of one of the strongest beings in existence. Not two.”

 

“Very good, Sam,” Lucifer said. His voice was filled with approval that set Dean’s teeth on edge. Sam glared at him.

 

Cas spoke before Dean had a chance to snark back at the devil. “But that still does not fully explain it. The Cage may have been strained, perhaps, but it would have still held. It is tailored to an archangel’s grace.”

 

“True,” Lucifer nodded. “If it had been at full power still, then no doubt Michael and I would have had no effect. As it was, 66 of the seals making up the Cage had been broken and never replaced. All it took was the right amount of pressure and it popped right open.” Dean didn’t know how it was possible for anyone to look that smug while tied to a chair. “Granted, it took us a couple centuries. But as you can see,” he quirked an eyebrow and gestured with his head. “It eventually worked.” The archangel tilted his head to the side, enough like Cas to make Dean shudder. “Where is my brother, by the way?” If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d think he was concerned.

 

“Michael appeared in Heaven at the same time you appeared here.” Dean and Sam looked at him in alarm. Castiel kept his eyes on Lucifer. “His grace is similarly bound and he’s being guarded. Would you like to know what I found among the ruins of the cage?”

 

Dean looked at his friend in slight confusion. He liked to think he knew Cas well enough to detect the nuances in the angel’s tone and body language. Cas’s voice had traces of smugness which sounded out of place in this conversation.

 

Dean noticed that Lucifer was now leaning forward but keeping his face only politely interested. “Do tell, little brother.”

 

Dean took a threatening step forward but Cas held up a hand to stop him.

 

“It seems there was a spell woven around the walls of the Cage, one that imposed the strongest binding of power I have ever witnessed on the recipients. I couldn’t see the extent of what it did from the remnants but I suspect it was meant to activate should you or Michael manage to escape.”

 

“What does that mean, exactly?” Sam asked.

 

Castiel gave a small smile to Sam, meeting Dean’s eyes for a moment before looking back at Lucifer. The archangel was no longer feigning interest, his face now pulled into intense concentration. Dean knew he wasn’t imagining the air of triumph around his friend now. “It means that someone, most likely our Father, took precautions to ensure the threat of Michael and Lucifer would be neutralized the moment their grace touched the spell. I would wager that after binding their grace, the spell placed them in the care of those who would be best equipped in dealing with them. That’s why Michael was left in Heaven and Lucifer, here.”

 

“Why would your Dad dump him on us?” Dean asked incredulously. He heard Sam make a sound of agreement behind him.

 

Cas looked at him with amusement. “Who better to watch over the devil, however depowered, than the two best hunters in the world?”

 

That mollified Dean a little bit but it couldn’t completely wipe out the irritation he felt at having to babysit the thing that hurt his brother. He grumbled and turned toward their prisoner and almost took a step back at the fury he saw. There was a look in his eye that was enough to make Cas bristle.

 

He took a breath, but before he could begin a loud gurgling noise sounded through the room.

 

Everyone froze. Lucifer’s eyes grew wide and he looked down at his body.

 

“That’s never happened before,” he mused.

 

Then Sam chuckled. When Dean turned to look at his brother, Sam started full out laughing. It only took a moment for Dean to catch on to what was so funny and when he did, he grinned and huffed out a laugh as well. Even Cas smiled a bit wider.

 

Because Lucifer’s stomach had just growled.

 

Dean could see the relief making Sam’s shoulders sag. Because if Lucifer was hungry, then that was irrefutable proof that he was basically human.

 

Dean could follow that train of thought easily enough. If Lucifer was human, then Sam could fight him. They were on equal footing this time.

 

“You’re hungry. That was your stomach growling,” Sam was finally able to choke out. 

 

“Great, I have to eat now.”

 

Sam snorted again but it was Cas who responded. “Among other things. Adjusting to human rituals can be difficult.”

 

“You’re teaching him how to piss,” Dean said, pointing at Castiel.

 

“Why do I have to do it?”

 

“Because I’m not doing it and Sam sure as hell ain’t doing it, so guess who that leaves? Besides, he’s _your_ brother. Technically.”

 

Cas rolled his eyes, a trait Dean was sure the angel had learned from him.

“Fine,” Cas sighed. “Let’s have this discussion elsewhere.”

 

As they turned to leave the room, he heard Sam tell Lucifer that he would bring him something to eat. Just as they closed the doors, they could hear a very soft, “Thank you, Sam” drift out.

 

“You know, we could just let him starve for a day or two,” Dean suggested.

 

Sam’s bitchface was his only answer.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Charlie was in the kitchen waiting nervously for the boys to finish whatever they were doing in the dungeon. Dean had been agitated and bitchy but Charlie knew he was mostly worried about Sam. This had to be hard for him. Talk about literally facing your inner demons.

 

Although according to the Winchester gospels and, like, the Bible, she mused, Lucifer was technically a fallen angel.

 

She heard footsteps heading toward her, so she turned around and started pouring the extra strong coffee she had made. When the boys trod into the kitchen, she set three steaming mugs on the counter and asked as cheerfully as she could, “So, how’s our resident master of evil? Still sleeping?””

 

Dean took his coffee and nodded his thanks. Sam took a swig of his and walked past her to the refrigerator. “No, he’s awake. Give her the lowdown, Cas.”

 

Cas had stayed back and was leaning against the doorframe. “As I was telling them, Michael and Lucifer seemed to have managed to escape from their cage. However, someone placed a spell around it to prevent them from being able to use their grace once they breached it. Michael is currently in Heaven. Both of them have their grace bound but Lucifer seems to be the only one who is practically human.”

 

Charlie raised her eyebrows. “That’s a good thing, right? He can’t hurt anyone without his power?”

 

“Looks that way,” Dean said.

 

“Dean, Sam. There's something else I need to tell you.” The brothers both turned to look at Cas. Charlie watched as his eyes softened and he said gently, “When Michael appeared in Heaven, Adam’s soul was returned to his personal heaven at the same time. He's safe.”

 

A tension Charlie hadn’t even been aware of seemed to disappear from the room. Sam managed to choke out “That’s good to hear. Thanks, Cas.”  He nodded. Dean didn’t say anything but he gave Cas a small smile before turning back to his coffee.

 

“So what happens now?” Charlie asked.

 

“Now,” Sam said, as he walked up to the counter holding a plate filled with a sandwich and chips. “We feed the brand new almost-human we have chained up in our basement. Should be fun.”

 

“I need to speak with Hannah about the situation with Michael. There's some other things I need to look into as well.”

 

Charlie watched with interest as Dean seemed to deflate a tiny bit. There wasn’t much of an outside shift accept the tightening of his hand around his coffee mug and a slight drooping of his shoulders.

 

Her poor boys. What did they even do before her?

 

Before anyone could say anything further, Charlie reached forward and plucked the plate from Sam’s hands quickly. ”I’ll take it to him. It’s not everyday you get to meet the big bad wolf when he has no claws.”

 

She was immediately met with a chorus of protests. She waited for a lull and said “Guys. I’ve fought Leviathans and a handful of other monsters. I spent a year fighting everything Oz could throw at me, including myself. I just finished slumming overseas in an adventure that ended with running from an ancient evil family with an equally ancient evil book. I can handle bringing a sandwich to a chained up, powerless, former ruler of hell. Thanks.”

 

And with that she walked out purposefully towards the dungeon.

 

After rounding the corner out of their sight she quickly prayed, _hey... Cas? Uh, I mean, Castiel? please don’t leave without talking to me first, ok? uh, amen._

 

Wow, that was surprisingly awkward. And she thought talking on the phone was bad. Hopefully he heard her.

 

As she made her way to the dungeon, she began to consider what she was doing. She had been thinking about the boys keeping the devil in their basement since they moved him there. But she had mostly been thinking about Sam.

 

Dean wasn’t the only one who was worried about him. Charlie didn’t know all of the details but she had heard the basic story of Sam’s hallucinations of Lucifer after getting out of hell. She had become very close to the two hunters and considered them family.

 

She had already lost her family once. She was determined to do everything she could to protect this one.

 

She approached the file cabinets and carefully moved them out of the way. When she finally turned back around she paused at what she saw. The man that had been unconscious the last time she saw him was now sitting up straight and watching her curiously with sharp blue eyes.

 

She held his gaze for a moment before eyeing the wards and the ring of fire.

 

“Wow, not taking any chances, are they?”

 

The man, _Lucifer_ , Charlie tried to remind herself, continued to stare at her with a blank expression.

 

She set the plate of food down on the floor and dropped into one of the chairs left behind by the boys.

 

“So, you’re the big bad devil, huh? Gotta say, I’m not all that impressed. I expected something a little more Hellboy. At least some flaming eyes like Sauron. But you look like you could be someone’s dad.”

 

He smiled slightly and narrowed his eyes. “Thanks. Who are you?”

 

Charlie smirked and crossed her arms. “Charlie. Unofficial, official little sister.”

 

He barely reacted to the information except to tilt his head slightly. “Well, congratulations to you. You must be so proud.”

 

Charlie bristled. She didn’t know what she had expected but it wasn’t this. Well, that’s not true, she did know. She had expected to feel scared. She had expected this creature, the real live satan to be more… well EVIL. Angry, blood thirsty, with an aura that she could feel in the air.

 

But this was worse. The man sitting across from her was restrained by everything the Winchesters could throw at him. Yet he still exuded such confidence that it would seem arrogant if it didn’t look as natural on him as the clothes he wore. His entire demeanor was soft, even gentle. The thought of him calmly committing acts of evil with that serene smile rattled Charlie more than if he was screaming threats.

 

She resisted the urge to shake her head of her thoughts. Clearing her throat, she leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees.

 

“Speaking of Sam, let me get right down to it.” Ah, now he looked interested. “The Winchesters are my family and I love them. _Sam_ is my family. You hurt him, which puts you at the top of my shit list. If you touch one strand on that beautiful head of hair of his again, I don’t care who you are, I will kick your ass so hard it’ll make you wish you stayed in your cage . Got it?”

 

Instead of shaking with fear at her awesome threat like she wanted, he only smirked. “I don’t know what Sam thinks happened, but I’ve never hurt him and I never will. But even if I did” and here his smirk turned into a sneer. “What could you _possibly_ do about it?”

 

Charlie scoffed. “Are you just going to ignore whatever you did to him in the cage? I don’t care if it wasn’t his physical body, it still counts.”

 

Lucifer squinted in what Charlie was pretty sure could be labeled confusion. “Again, I’ve never hurt Sam, not really. And never intentionally.”

 

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Right, I suppose his soul just happened to be ripped to shreds while you were just sitting there crocheting.”

 

An emotion that could have been guilt flashed across his face before he smoothed it back into its usual calm smile and confident eyes. “You weren’t there, so what do you know? If I did hurt him, there’s not really anything you could do. You’re hardly a threat.”

 

Charlie really shouldn’t do what she was thinking about doing. It was stupid.

 

When had that ever stopped her?

 

As calmly as she could, she walked over to one of the shelves and picked up a blanket. Lucifer watched curiously as she moved around and when she dropped it over a section of the holy fire, his eyes widened.

 

She walked forward, and without any hesitation, punched Lucifer in the face.

 

And, wow, did that hurt. His face was harder than any human face had a right to be and her hand was screaming at her. But at least it wasn’t like hitting a brick wall as Carver Edlund had described when Dean punched Cas.

 

It was worth it too see the shock and hear the pained grunt from Lucifer.

 

Trying not to show how much pain her hand was in, she leaned down until they were eye to eye, making sure she had his full attention.

 

“You’re human now,” she said quietly. “Or pretty close. And you have no idea what I’m capable of. Don’t forget that, douchebag.”

 

She picked up the blanket, grateful there was still enough oil for the fire to reconnect.

 

She started toward the door before she saw the plate of food. She had almost forgotten why she had come in here.

 

“I’ll get one of the boys to come unchain you so you can eat,” she said, gesturing to the plate and then wincing as pain shot through her hand.

 

As she closed the shelves, she wondered at how her life had come to a point where punching the devil in the dungeon of a secret society was a normal Monday.  

 

* * *

 

To say it startled Cas to hear Charlie’s prayer would be an understatement. What could his new friend possibly want to talk about that she felt the need to leave out the brothers? He didn’t like keeping secrets; He already had so many. With apprehension, Castiel excused himself after a few minutes, saying he was going to check on Charlie, and lingered outside the dungeon doors. He didn’t have to wait long before the redhead walked out, cradling her right hand.

 

“Charlie? What happened to your hand?” Cas frowned, moving closer.

 

She looked up in surprise and tried to hide it behind her back, but he grabbed her wrist before she could. She hissed in pain, and Cas quickly pulsed his grace around the injury and looked at her expectantly.

 

“I…” She looked down sheepishly. “I may have done something stupid…”

 

“Like?”

 

“Like punch Satan in the face?”

 

“Charlie!”

 

“I know!” She exclaimed, pacing down the hallway. “But I told him that he’d regret it if he did anything to Sam, and he said if he hurt Sam that there wasn’t anything that I could do, and he’s human now, right, so I just thought ‘well we’ll see about that’ and my god, I’ve never had my  hand hurt so bad after punching someone, what is he even made of-”

 

“Charlie, stop,” Cas said, amused by her rambling. “Lucifer may not have most of his grace, but he is still an angel. His vessel will be more durable than a normal human’s body. That being said,” here he narrowed his eyes at her. “You shouldn’t antagonize him. We can’t be sure how long this binding will last. It could be forever or it could break tomorrow. My Father isn’t known for being… dedicated.”

 

She sighed and rubbed her hand. “Yeah, I know… thanks for healing me, by the way. Again.”

 

“Of course.” They stared at each other for a few seconds before Cas cleared his throat and said, “You wanted to, uh, speak to me? Before I left?”

 

Charlie straightened and looked around quickly before grabbing his wrist and tugging him around the corner and into what looked like an unused supply closet. There was dust covering every surface and Castiel was able take in an almost disturbingly large pile of blankets before he was spun around to face Charlie.

 

“Look man, I know that we don’t really know each other all that well, but… I mean, do you have to leave? I think Dean could really use your support right now.”

 

Cas’s eyes widened in surprise. He tried to keep the hope out of his voice when he asked, “DId he say that?”

 

She rolled her eyes. “No, of course not. But I can tell, alright? With Lucifer here, he’s gonna be stressed to hell worrying about Sam, and he’s already dealing with the Mark. He needs you.”

 

Cas smiled sadly at her. “I don’t think so, Charlie. I think if Dean needed me to stay here, then he would say so.”

 

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she snapped. “You and I both know he has horrific self worth issues and he’d never ask you to stay if he thought there were other, ‘more important’, things for you to be doing. But dammit, Cas, _Dean_ is important! So please,” Her eyes turned pleading. “I’m asking for him. Stay.”

 

He felt her words like a physical blow, his insides twisting. He knew deep down that she was right, but what else was he supposed to do?

 

“Trust me, Charlie, I want to stay,” He heard the frustration he was feeling bleed into his words but he didn’t try to stop it. “The idea of leaving now is… but you don’t understand, there are things I have to do.”

 

“Like what? Enlighten me,” she demanded.

 

He huffed and rolled his eyes. It was obvious she wasn’t going to let this go and Castiel didn’t know how to make her understand. Honestly, he didn’t need to stay here. He could just fly off and take care of what needed to be done. It would be easy.

 

But, suddenly, Cas _wanted_ to tell Charlie what was going on. Maybe he was hoping she would say something to convince him to stay, maybe he just wanted someone else to know besides Sam. But whatever it was, Cas found himself saying. “Do you know who Metatron is?”

 

Charlie blinked. “Uh… Isn’t he the douche who took your mojo?”

 

“Yes.” The story poured out of him - Metatron’s vague statement about the Mark, his anger at his siblings for being unwilling to help, his and Sam’s desperate plan (“You broke into Heaven?! Dude, that’s hardcore!” “Thank you?”), and finally his cross country trip with Metatron.

 

“But by the time I was “angeled up”, as Dean says, he was gone. Now he has the demon tablet and he’s out there. I have to find him.”

 

“I can do it.”

 

“What?” That was not what he had expected.

 

“Cas, the guy’s human now, with a giant Ten Commandments looking stone. If I can find a book that had been lost for eighty years, I guarantee that I can find him.”

 

He considered her a moment before shaking his head. “That may be true, but that isn’t everything. Someone has to keep looking for a cure for the Mark.”

 

“Well that someone is gonna be me. Cas, please. Let me take over all of this stuff and you take care of our favorite green eyed hunter. Ok?”

 

They stared each other down, Charlie with wide eyes, silently begging, while Cas internally debated with his desire to stay with Dean and Sam and what he felt was his responsibility.

 

In the end, it was a tentative _hey Cas, you haven’t left yet, have ya?_ from Dean that made his decision.

 

He nodded, and Charlie sighed in relief. “Good. But for the love of Moondor, don’t tell him that’s why you’re staying. He’ll throw a bitch fit.”

 

He gave a small smile and followed her out of the closet. As he pulled his phone out to let Dean know they were on their way back to the kitchen, he felt a tug on his arm. He looked over at Charlie, who was biting her bottom lip and seemed hesitant to speak. “Look, Cas. It’s not really my place to tell you what to do in your relationship with Dean, but uh… you should really tell him about Metatron. He’ll just be more upset if he finds out about it later.”

 

She walked quickly ahead of him as he thought about what she said. Cas knew she was right. He also knew Dean would be furious when he found out. He sighed. He would cross that bridge when he came to it, he supposed.

 


	4. Chapter 4

They fell into a routine after that. It was decided that keeping Lucifer in a ring of holy fire and tied to a chair was impractical in the long run, and considering he needed to sleep now, they moved an old mattress and some bedding into the dungeon. After scrubbing off the other angel warding so Castiel would have access to the dungeon, they attached one cuff to Lucifer’s ankle, helpfully carved in stronger Enochian by Cas, with a long chain connected to a bolt in the floor. It wasn’t much, but he had a modicum of space to move around.

 

Sam and Charlie would bring him food (Dean refused to be in the room with him if he didn’t need to be) and Cas would collect him two times a day to use the bathroom. That was a traumatizing experience for them both.

 

For the first couple of days, Lucifer was surprisingly subdued. For him, at least. He still snarked when he could and dropped a few choice insults and veiled threats. But he didn’t fight them physically, so they counted it as a win.

 

By the third day, however, Sam noticed his demeanor had gotten nastier. He lashed out more, the threats became decidedly less veiled. It wasn’t until the morning of the fourth day, when Charlie made a joke about him turning into a racoon, that Sam realized Lucifer must not be sleeping well. And yeah, he gets that. Sleeping must be weird for a being not used to it. But for all their sakes, he needed to get over it.

 

Sam briefly considered slipping some Nyquil in his next meal, but decided against it. He didn’t know how it would affect him and he really didn’t need him any angrier. They had almost come to blows the last time Sam had brought his food. So, it was with not a little trepidation, that he decided he actually needed to talk to him about this.

 

When Sam moved the filing cabinets out of the way, he found Lucifer sitting crossed legged in the middle of his mattress, staring silently at the left wall. He glanced briefly in Sam’s direction before turning back to the wall.

 

“What can I do for you, Sam?”

 

“What are you doing?” Sam asked, frowning.

 

Lucifer sighed and twisted around so he was facing Sam, propping his chin on both his hands, elbows on his knees. “I was listing the chemical compounds that make up Jupiter and its moons and making notes on how I would have done it differently.”

 

Sam blinked. “Huh.” That wasn’t what he was expecting. “Aren’t you bored?” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He could still hear that whiny voice keeping him up, not letting him sleep, obnoxiously singing or spouting inane chatter.

 

Lucifer quirked an eyebrow and his mouth curved into a smirk.

 

“I guess. But angels by nature are very patient - well, they’re supposed to be - and I spent a millennia or so on my own. I’m pretty good at keeping myself busy.”

 

Sam blinked. That wasn’t anything like his hallucination-Lucifer. “I guess…”

 

“What? Are you surprised?” Lucifer asked.

 

Sam shrugged noncommittally, choosing to let the subject die. Reaching over for a chair, he sat down and awkwardly stared at their prisoner for a few seconds. He looked awful. The bags under his eyes that Sam had noticed the other day were now so dark, they looked like bruises. His eyes themselves were bloodshot, and despite taking a shower yesterday, his hair looked dull, his face a pale, sick color. Clearing his throat, he started off in his most comforting-a-terrified-and-grief-stricken-witness voice. “Listen, Lucifer, I need to ask you something.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

Sam glared at him before breathing deep and leaning forward, making sure to make eye contact. “Are you… are you sleeping?”

 

Lucifer’s face immediately closed off. “Angels don’t need sleep.”

 

“Yeah, well, they don’t need to eat or use the bathroom either.” Lucifer huffed and Sam pressed forward. “You didn’t answer my question. Have you slept at all since you got here?” 

 

They stared each other down until Lucifer sighed, frustrated. “I slept a little the second night I was here. But no, not really.”

 

Sam gaped. “Lucifer, that’s been three days! Almost four!”

 

“I’m so glad you can count,” Lucifer scowled. “It doesn't matter, Sam. I’m fine.”

 

Sam shook his head. “You’re not fine. Have you see yourself lately? You’re a wreck, Lucifer. Angel or not, if you keep on like this, you could die. It’s not healthy.”

 

The angel rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Since when do you care if I live or not?”

 

“That’s not the issue here,” Sam said. Although he did wonder why he cared if Lucifer ran himself into the ground. He just felt responsible for him. God literally dropped him in their laps to watch over. This, at least, was something Sam wouldn’t fail at.  

 

“Why can’t you sleep?”

 

They held each other’s gaze for a moment (Sam feeling ridiculously like Dean and Cas for a wild second) before Lucifer looked away, his eyes shifting around the room before settling on his lap.

 

“Do you remember anything about the Cage, Sam?”

 

Sam’s flinch seemed to be enough answer, because he continued in a quiet voice. “I’ve spent a lot of my existence in that place. Cut off from my brothers and sisters, my Father. No connection to His creation. Of course, the pain from the environment wasn’t pleasant, but it was the isolation that was the real punishment. For centuries, I was completely and utterly alone.”

 

His eyes seemed to stare at something over Sam’s shoulder, but Sam knew his mind was far away, remembering. When he turned his face to meet Sam’s eyes, he face became hard again but Sam could see a spark of fear there now.

 

“I can’t go back there, Sam. You and your brother were the ones to put me there the second time, and I would choose being your prisoner over that dump any day. And I mean, I know it’s not there, but… I…” he trailed off, huffing in irritation.

 

Sam considered him a moment, choosing his words carefully. “You’re... worried... that if you go to sleep, somehow you’ll wake up in the cage again.”

 

Lucifer shrugged. “Not to mention the idiocy of choosing to lose consciousness and make yourself vulnerable to anything that decides to drop in. I just won’t do it.”

 

Sam hummed in thought, not breaking eye contact. He had an idea, but it was a horrible idea. It was completely crazy. Dean wouldn’t understand and they’d probably fight about it later.

 

What else was new.

 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, standing up. Before he walked out, he tilted his head back and smirked. “Don’t go anywhere.”

 

He missed the brunt of Lucifer’s glare as he left the room and headed to the library. After gathering his laptop and a couple books that he had been meaning to look over, he let Dean know where he would be and ran back before he could protest.

 

He walked back into the room, ignored the curious look from Lucifer, and went to work getting his area set up. He made sure his chair was outside of Lucifer’s range, plugged in his laptop, and set the stack of books on a second chair within arms reach. After a second of thought, he ran back to the kitchen and grabbed a beer and a bag of kale chips.

 

He added these items to his area and then sat down facing Lucifer. He made sure he had the angel’s full attention before speaking.

 

“Here’s what’s gonna happen. I am going to sit here for the next few hours and you are going to sleep. I won’t let anything get to you. No one is going to throw you in the cage. No one is going to hurt you. If they want to, they’ll have to go through me.”

 

Lucifer had looked shocked at the beginning of his speech and now his face was filled with skepticism. “You’re going to watch over me? That’s supposed to make me feel safe enough to sleep? Sam, no offense, but you hate me. What makes you think that will work?”

 

“Because you know I’ll keep my word,” Sam responded without hesitation. His eyes bored into Lucifer’s, knowing he could see the truth in them. “You’ve been in my head, Lucifer. As much as it makes my skin crawl, you know me better than most people. If I say no one will touch you, no one will touch you.” They held eye contact for a few more moments, the tension in the air almost palpable. Finally, without speaking, Lucifer slowly stretched out on his bed, even covering himself with the blanket. It took the better part of an hour, but finally Sam was able to make out a pattern of deep breathing coming from Lucifer.

 

So, Sam was keeping vigil so the devil could have a good night’s sleep. The irony was not lost on him.

 

* * *

 

“Dean, I need to speak to you.”

 

Dean looked up at his friend. He looked nervous, which was strange for Cas.

 

“What’s up, man?”

 

“Can we go somewhere a little more private?”

 

Dean raised his eyebrows. Whatever this was, it must be serious. He sighed internally. Lucifer had only been here for three days, and now this, whatever this was. Would they ever catch a break?

 

A whisper across his mind sparked a spike of anger at the fact that there even _was_ something Cas needed to talk to him about. Had he done something stupid again? Was he going to bring up the Mark or Dean’s behavior? Was he finally going to leave?

 

Dean quickly crushed those thoughts before they could grow and forced his mind to calm down. He took deep breathes as he led Cas back to his bedroom. He’s got this. He does.

 

He pushed open his door and ushered Cas in front of him. Closing the door, he gestured for his friend to begin.

 

Cas stood still for a moment, his face now falling into the stoic angel mask that Dean was more familiar with.

 

“What I am about to tell you is likely to make you angry, but I believe keeping it from you would be worse.”

 

Dean already didn’t like where this was going.

 

“Well, spit it out, dude,” Dean said with more venom than he intended.

 

“I let Metatron escape with the demon tablet, but he is human now and Charlie is looking for him.”

 

Dean felt like someone sucker punched him and he had to fight to hear over the roar in his ears.

 

“You wanna run that by me again?”

 

“Sam and I broke into Heaven to retrieve Metatron and learn what he knew about the Mark. We removed his grace so he would be at a disadvantage and susceptible to… persuasion. After we learned that he didn't know of a way to remove the Mark from you, he claimed he knew where my grace was. Sam gave me the choice, and while it was selfish of me, I chose to trust him.” At this point he broke his eye contact with Dean and looked at the floor.

 

“I understand that it wasn’t prudent to do so, but if there was a chance to get my own grace back, it was a risk I was willing to take. When we finally reached the location, I was able to retrieve my grace, but before I did, Metatron tricked me, again, and made his escape with the demon tablet. But Charlie assures me that he will be easy to find now that he is human, and she has volunteered to do this while she researches the Mark and the Styne family.”

 

By the end of his speech, Cas’s eyes were pleading, though his face hadn’t changed.

 

Dean didn’t say anything. He was too busy fighting back the overwhelming urge to beat the crap out of Cas, the pounding, searing heat that was singing at him to feel Cas’s blood on his hands, to feel his bones breaking.

 

 _He lied to you!_ hissed through his mind. _He didn’t listen to you, he betrayed you! He let Metatron loose! Always so stupid, you should put him out of his misery!_

 

 _No!_ Dean screamed. _He told me! He’s trying!_

 

“Dean?” Cas’s voice was uncertain and it only added fuel to the fire. “Are you-”

 

“Shut _up_ , Cas!” Dean yelled. He turned away, desperately fighting the urges the Mark was pulsing through him.

 

Objectively, Dean knew there hadn’t really been an opportunity for Cas to tell him this before now. He was angry at him for believing Metadouche, but he couldn’t blame him for wanting his grace back. And he _told_ him about it. He didn’t keep it a secret longer than he had to. Sure, he and Sam acted like idiots, but they did it to save him; he would do the same for both of them.

 

None of that mattered in the face of the raging fury pounding in his head and under his skin. It was choking him. He was drowning in it.

 

“Dean!” Someone was calling his name urgently; they needed to get away, he didn’t think he could hold the fire back anymore, he’d hurt them…

 

Suddenly a cold sensation washed over him, pushing back the heat long enough for Dean to pull in much needed oxygen. It was only a moment, but it was enough.

 

Dean was ready for the onslaught this time, and he beat it back, pushed it down until it settled into the low simmer that he had grown used to.

 

Slowly becoming aware of his surroundings, Dean discovered he had ended up on his knees at some point. He was curled forward, his left hand gripping his right forearm so hard it was probably bruised, his right hand tangled in some sort of fabric. Looking up and meeting worried blue eyes, Dean realized it was Cas’s trenchcoat.

 

“I got it, Cas, I got it,” Dean said breathlessly, moving his left hand to his friend’s shoulder.

 

“Dean?”

 

“It’s ok, Cas,” Dean assured him. He squeezed his shoulder weakly and tried for a smile. “It’s ok, I got it, it’s ok, you’re ok, it’s all fine.” Cas was safe. Dean was in control again. Thanks to that moment of peace.

 

“What did you do?” Dean asked shakily, refusing his friend’s help to stand through a flush of embarrassment.

 

“I sent a pulse of my grace directly at the Mark. I’m actually surprised that it did anything.”

 

Dean swiped a hand down his face and sighed. “Well I’m glad it did. That was bad. So, um,” he stuttered, “you know. Thanks.”

 

“You’re welcome, Dean.” 

 

“I’m still pissed at you, but,” he emphasized when Cas’s shoulders drooped. “I understand why you did it. And I’m glad you told me and I didn’t find out some other way. So, we’re good, ok?”

 

Cas smiled softly at him and Dean couldn’t handle that look for long. “Come on,” he said gruffly, clapping his hand on Cas’s shoulder. “Let’s go have a beer. Or I’ll have a beer and you can watch. Whatever.”

 

* * *

 

Lucifer missed Sam. Which was a nauseating thought, but there it was.

 

He and the older Winchester had left for what Sam believed was a wendigo hunt a little over two days ago and Lucifer had only managed to sleep a handful of hours since. He hated that he needed a human’s help for anything, even if that human was Sam. He would stop all of it in an instant if he could. Unfortunately, Lucifer had discovered that getting more sleep did make him feel better, which was highly annoying. The entire situation made him feel vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to and it made him burn with shame if he thought about it for too long.

 

For the past week and half, the hunter had been staying up with Lucifer every other night, ‘keeping watch’. After learning that Lucifer only slept a couple hours at the most without him there, he began bringing him books he thought he would enjoy.

 

Lucifer was fairly certain that Good Omens and Twilight had both been jokes.

 

He was in the middle of reading the latest book Sam had leant him, when the “door” to his prison opened to reveal the man himself.

 

He looked terrible. Pale, covered in scratches, and bags under his eyes that were impressive for only being gone for two and a half days.

 

“Hey, Sam,” Lucifer began, not bothering to hide his concern. “What happened to you?”

 

“The wendigo,” Sam replied tiredly, “decided I would make a nice meal and tried to drag me towards it’s cave. Through the woods. Filled with sharp, pointy sticks.”

 

While he talked, Lucifer watched in mild amusement as Sam cast about for a chair and sluggishly dragged it into the room, dropping into it backwards. Apparently, he was staying awhile.

 

“Then Dean, because he’s a sadistic son of a bitch, decided it wasn’t _that_ late and ‘we can make it back by night, Sam, we can sleep in our own beds, my mattress misses me’. Ignoring the fact that we had stayed up the night before, tracking the thing. If you ask me, I think he was more worried that Cas would fly off without him here than his memory foam.”

 

The exhausted hunter rubbed at his eyes before dropping his head onto his arms propped on the back of the chair.

 

Lucifer debated on what to say. It was a testament to how tired Sam was that he was talking so freely and Lucifer was enjoying every moment of it.

 

He thought about asking why he didn’t get Castiel to heal him immediately, but that may cause him to leave and Lucifer was too selfish to suggest it quite yet. While he was sympathetic, the hunter had surely had worse than this before.

 

“Why didn’t you sleep in the car?” he asked instead. Sam rolled his head to make eye contact and grunted. “I tried. But Dean refused to play his music on anything other than blaring.”

 

“Ah, I see.” He waited a few minutes but Sam didn’t add anything and Lucifer strongly suspected he was going to fall asleep in his chair. “Sam,” he said gently, and then louder when he got no response, “ _Sam._ ” Only after he heard a groaned response did he continue. “You’re exhausted. Go to sleep.”

 

It baffled him that Sam had come to check on him when he was in such a state. It gave him a warm feeling in his chest that he didn't understand.

 

Sam finally looked up blearily and reached into his pocket, fumbling with what Lucifer recognized as the keys to his chains.

 

“I was gonna let you use the bathroom… or something… “

 

“I'm fine, Sam,” Lucifer smiled. Father help him, but there was something irresistible about Sam when he was sleepy and off guard.

 

“Mmkay,” he mumbled and dropped his head back down.

 

“Sam.” He didn’t move. “Sam!”

 

Lucifer snorted. He was out. Lucifer was slightly worried that Sam was so sleepy after a hunt, but he’d have to trust that the hunter knew his limits. A shiver ran through Sam’s body and Lucifer frowned.

 

If Sam was cold, he really should try harder to wake him up and make him go to bed.

 

Trying to decide what he could throw at the boy, since he obviously wasn’t moving just by calling his name, Lucifer saw that in his dazed state, Sam had moved his chair closer than he usually did. He was well within Lucifer’s range of movement.

 

He then glanced at his bed, where the blanket they had given him lay crumpled in the middle. He considered his options for all of two seconds before grabbing the blanket and walking carefully towards Sam.

 

He moved as quietly as he could, taking care not to rattle the chain too much as he walked. He was almost there when Sam made a small noise and Lucifer froze. Sam shifted his head around but didn’t wake up. Lucifer sighed his relief. He didn’t think he would survive the embarrassment if he was caught mid-action.

 

The chain, extended all the way out, put him directly in front of Sam’s chair. Holding his breath, he swung the blanket around in one motion, draping it over Sam’s shoulders.

 

Amazingly, he didn’t stir. Again, Lucifer worried how bad Sam had truly been hurt. Gently, he adjusted the blanket so that it wrapped all the way around Sam’s arms over the back of the chair before retreating back to his mattress.

 

It was only a few minutes later that he realized he hadn’t even thought of taking the keys to his prison. He still could. But oddly, he didn’t really want to. Now wasn’t that interesting? He’d have to think about that.


	5. Chapter 5

_Fire. Hot, scorching flames were everywhere. They licked up Sam’s arms, devouring his body._

 

_“Dean!” He yelled desperately. He couldn't see, couldn't hear anything but the flames and pain. He had to get away but he couldn’t move._

 

_“Dean! Help me!” He screamed again. Wait, no, he didn’t want his brother here, the fire would get him too. Why was he here? He shouldn't be here!_

 

_“Let me out!”_

 

_Suddenly, a soothing voice broke over the roar of the fire. “It’s ok, Sam,” it said softly. Sam knew that voice. He didn’t think it was meant to be calming but the flames were receding._

 

_“You’re safe, Sam. I won’t let anything hurt you,” the voice assured him._

 

_Despite a nagging feeling that he wasn’t supposed to trust this voice, Sam felt himself relax and slip into blissful darkness._

 

* * *

 

Sam floated towards consciousness slowly, enjoying the in between space of asleep and awake. He became aware that he was propped on a chair and not in a bed or in the Impala. Had he fallen asleep in the library again? He didn’t smell books or old wood.

 

Blinking open his eyes, he saw the dark concrete and cracked walls of the dungeon. Ah, that's right, he had fallen asleep in the dungeon. A jolt of panic woke Sam up in an instant.

 

He fell asleep in the dungeon. With Lucifer.

 

He jerked himself up straight and something fell off his shoulders. Glancing down, Sam reached for the thing and stared at it uncomprehendingly.

 

“You were cold.”

 

He whipped his head around so fast he nearly overbalanced the chair. “What?”

 

Lucifer was once again sitting on his bed, a book in his hands. He marked his place before setting the book aside and gesturing towards Sam. “You were cold, so I covered you with the blanket.”

 

“You covered me with your blanket,” Sam repeated blankly.

 

“I wasn’t using it,” Lucifer shrugged, “and you wouldn’t wake up when I tried to get you to go to your room.”

 

Sam felt like he was in a dream. Or another alternate universe. Pulling his phone out, he saw he had been out for about two hours. He jerkily got to his feet, intent on getting out of there as quickly as possible.

 

“Uh,” he awkwardly held out the blanket for Lucifer to take. “Thanks.”

 

Lucifer reached out and smiled slightly. “No problem, Sam. You might wanna get Castiel to heal you, though.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll… do that.”

 

He didn’t do that.

 

Instead, he wandered blindly to his room, dropping onto his bed with a groan. His body did not appreciate the impromptu nap in a hard-backed chair.

 

What was Lucifer playing at? Sam knows he knew the keys were in his pocket, he remembered pulling them out to show him. So why? Lucifer was nothing if not smart. If he had wanted to kill Sam and escape he could have done that easily when he was asleep. Sam certainly would have expected that. The Lucifer in his head would have taken the opportunity in a second, gleefully taking pleasure in Sam’s pain.

 

But no. He hadn’t hurt him. He’d done the freakin _opposite_ , covering him in a blanket, like a child. He _took care of him_ , and Sam didn’t _understand_.

 

If he wasn’t going to do anything, why did they have him chained up?

 

Would Sam feel safe with Lucifer roaming free in the bunker? It went against everything in him to not have Lucifer contained. He’d never sleep again.

 

But was that really true? He literally just fell asleep in front of him. Even if he was in a ring of holy fire, Sam wouldn’t have imagined being able to do that before now.

 

And he hadn’t even _thought_ about it. He had the sickening realization that he had actually been looking forward to complaining to Lucifer.

 

Maybe it was all an elaborate plan to gain freedom. But that didn’t make any sense. There was no guarantee that Sam would make the decision to free him just because he didn't hurt him when given the first opportunity. Not to mention the gamble that Sam could convince Dean and Cas that it was ok.

 

It _was_ getting a little old, bringing him food, and he’s sure Cas would appreciate not taking him to the bathroom.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone. “What?” he growled when he answered.

 

“ _There’s no reason to be rude, Winchester_ ,” Rowena snipped back at him. “ _I haven’t even given you the bad news yet_.”

 

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he let out a long sigh. “What bad news?”

 

“ _As much as it pains me to admit, I can’t read this book by myself. It’s written in code that I can’t interpret or spell away, so if you want to find out how to save your brother, you’ll have to find some way to break it._ ”

 

If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Couldn’t this one thing be easy? Didn’t they deserve a break, yet?

 

“I’ll look into it.”

 

“ _Well, you’d better get a move on. Or, if you let me go, I could very easily find something to-_ ”

 

“Goodbye, Rowena,” he said, shutting off his phone.

 

Now his head was hurting along with the rest of his body. Maybe it was time to find Cas. Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes, slowly rolling off the bed. He checked Cas’s room (empty), said hi to Charlie in the library where she pointed him towards the kitchen. He considered her as he made his way there. Maybe Charlie could figure out something about breaking the code on the book. She was good at that kind of thing. He made a mental note to talk to her about it later.

 

When he came around the corner, Cas was just closing the refrigerator, holding a beer.

 

“Hey, Cas,” Sam gestured to the beer, “Since when do you drink?”

 

“Oh, it’s not for me, it’s for Dean. He was complaining of thirst while working on the Impala, so I thought I’d bring him this.”

 

Sam nodded absently. “That’s cool. Listen man, would you mind healing me? I’m pretty banged up from our hunt yesterday.”

 

Castiel frowned in concern. “Of course.” Reaching forward, he pressed two fingers to his forehead and Sam blinked through the initial disorientation of going from aching to perfectly fine.

 

“Thanks, man,” he said in relief.

 

“You’re welcome, Sam,” he smiled serenely. “I’m happy to help.”

 

He moved to pass him but Sam stopped him with a hand on his arm.

 

“Cas, wait. Can I ask you something?”

 

The angel turned to face Sam fully, his head moving into his signature tilt. Quickly, Sam explained what had happened with Lucifer and voiced his concerns.

 

“I mean, I’m crazy, right? Letting Lucifer free is a bad idea, isn’t it? Despite what happened last night, he’d probably take the first chance he had to take us out or escape.”

 

He had nearly convinced himself when Cas asked, “And why would he do that?”

 

“What?”

 

“Think about it, Sam. He has no idea how to survive out in the world as a human. He wouldn’t fair much better than I did. And ignoring the angels, if Crowley somehow found out he was vulnerable? He’d kill him in an instant.” Sam hadn’t thought of it like that. “This is the safest place for him. I’m not saying we should trust him, obviously. But I think we can at least trust his sense of self preservation.”

 

Sam considered this for a moment before he looked up at his friend in confusion.

 

“If that’s the case, why haven’t you mentioned letting him live in the Bunker before now?”

 

“You mean besides the reaction the suggestion would get from Dean?” the angel shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think you would be comfortable with the idea.”

 

A smile spread across Sam’s face. “You were willing to escort Lucifer to the bathroom for the rest of time because it made me more comfortable?”

 

“Yes.” Sam’s grin widened at his friend’s matter-of-fact tone. He pulled the angel into a quick hug, murmuring “Thanks, Cas.”

 

He patted Sam’s back, giving him one last “You’re welcome, Sam,” before walking out the door.

 

Sam continued to stand in the kitchen, thinking about the situation. Maybe he was doing exactly what Lucifer wanted him to, but he didn’t see anything deceitful when he had talked to the angel. He was arrogant, of course, and a bit of a brat. But…

 

 _“I will never lie to you. I will never trick you_.” He can still hear those words like it was yesterday. He hadn’t believed him then, but it was true, he never had. Not once.

 

Maybe it was time he tested that promise.


	6. Chapter 6

About a day after Sam fell asleep in front of him, Lucifer came to find both the hunter and Castiel standing in front of him looking guarded. He raised an eyebrow as Sam crossed his arms in front of his chest, his mouth drawn into a frown.

 

“Why didn’t you try to escape?”

 

Lucifer’s eyes widened a fraction in surprise, but he kept the rest of his face neutral. “What would be the point?” When Sam’s face didn’t change, he elaborated. “Where would I go, Sam? I have no power. I don’t know how to be a human.” Lucifer shrugged before continuing. “You may hate me, but if you were gonna kill me, I’d already be dead. Besides, if we’re being honest with each other, I enjoy your company.”

 

They held eye contact with each other for a few moments before Sam seemed to make some sort of decision and nodded. 

 

“Ok.”

 

Without further preamble, he walked forward and leaned down, unlocking the manacle around Lucifer’s ankle. The angel blinked in confusion, rubbing the skin where the chain had chaffed him. “‘Ok’, what?” he asked warily.

 

“‘Ok’, we’re gonna see if this works. You are now free to roam around here on a few conditions.”

 

Lucifer tried to keep himself from gaping as Sam continued. “First, you are not allowed to go outside unless there is one of us with you. You have restricted access to only certain sections of the Bunker - that’s where we are - and if you stray into other sections we will bring you back here. Any harassment or inappropriate behavior will send you back here. DO NOT antagonize Dean, because Cas and I aren’t gonna stop him if he decides to retaliate. Probably. Understood?”

 

Lucifer just nodded absently, still shocked that they were actually going to let him be - relatively - free. Was all of this because he covered Sam with a blanket? Really?

 

Lucifer always knew that Sam was too trusting for his own good, but even he felt like this was maybe crossing a line. Not that he was complaining.

 

Dean was probably furious, and that thought made him slightly gleeful.

 

“Come on, I’ll give you the tour.” With that, Sam turned around and started walking away, Lucifer walking apprehensively behind him and Castiel bringing up the rear.

 

At least Sam wasn’t being blindly trusting, Lucifer noted.

 

He was eager to see where they were and took in the dark concrete walls and rows of identical doors with interest. Of course, he had seen some of it already, with his treks to the bathroom, but it was so much bigger than he thought. Sam had called this place ‘the bunker’, which he assumed meant they were underground. Very interesting indeed.

 

Apparently, there were many storage rooms he was not allowed access to, which was irksome. But there were other rooms he could visit. He was shown the other bathrooms and showers, the communal TV room (which didn’t look like it was used much), and the kitchen.

 

They were wandering down another long, door laden hallway, Sam indicating that they were bedrooms and who they belonged to, when he stopped in front of one of the nondescript doors.

 

“And this is your room,” Sam said, twisting the handle and revealing the space behind it. “It’s right across from mine.”

 

Lucifer stepped into the room and looked around curiously. It was pretty plain, just one bed and a nightstand in the middle and a desk and bookshelf against one wall.

 

He’d never had a bedroom before. He’d had private spaces in heaven, of course, but not a bedroom in a house. Honestly, he wasn’t really sure how to feel about it. He knew what was expected of him though.

 

“Thank you, Sam. Castiel.” He turned around to face them. “It’s very… nice.”

 

Sam smirked and gestured for him to follow him. “You don’t have to sound so excited. Come on, we’re not done. There’s one more place I want to show you.”

 

* * *

 

Dean hated this.

 

He could not believe they were letting Lucifer roam around the bunker, their home. Have they forgotten how much pain he caused? How many people he killed? What about what he did to Sam? And Cas? He freakin’ exploded him!

 

It was obviously some sort of ploy or plan to escape. Lucifer may have fooled the others but Dean wasn’t falling for it. He was seething, and he could feel the Mark gearing up, anticipating violence, and feeding his anger.

 

He was sitting in the library, sipping his beer, when he heard voices coming from the hallway.

 

Sure enough, not two seconds later, they all came traipsing into the room, with Lucifer walking between Sam and Cas. At least they had some sort of sense and were keeping him surrounded.

 

“And this is the library,” Sam swept his hand around to indicate the space and Dean rolled his eyes at the hint of pride in his brother’s voice.

 

“Impressive.” Dean felt his face contort into a scowl at Lucifer’s voice. The Mark spiked with heat, as if the angel’s very proximity was an invitation to destroy him. At least that was one thing they could agree on.

 

As if sensing he was being mentally threatened, the former archangel turned his head to look at Dean, his eyes narrowing in confusion.

 

“What?” Dean practically snarled.

 

Sam shot him a warning look and Cas gave an exasperated sigh, both of which he ignored.

 

“Dean,” Lucifer acknowledged him, “you seem… different.”

 

“Yeah?” He sneered. “You still seem like a douche to me.”

 

“ _Dean_.” Honestly, he was impressed Cas was able to fit so much attitude into one word.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” He said dismissively. Standing up, he jabbed his finger at Lucifer and the angel’s eyes widened. “You stay away from me, you got it?”

 

Faster than he could follow, Dean was pushed into the wall behind him, Lucifer’s right arm across his chest, pinning him in place. Lucifer’s left hand was stretching out his right arm, causing his shirt to ride up and reveal the Mark.

 

Lucifer’s eyes locked onto the brand on his skin and there was a moment where everything was still.

 

Then Sam and Cas were pulling Lucifer away, and though he didn’t struggle, his eyes never left Dean.

 

“What did you _do_ , Dean Winchester?”

 

The wording was so eerily similar to when Cas first saw the mark that Dean was immediately filled with guilt, shame, and defensiveness.

 

He opened his mouth to respond but apparently, Lucifer wasn’t done.

 

“Do you have _any_ idea the danger you’ve put Sam in, taking that thing? Don’t even get me started on what will happen if you die while under its influence.”

 

“Lucifer, enough!” Sam yelled.

 

Every word was like a kick to Dean’s gut and it only added to his anger.

 

“I did what I had to!” He shouted angrily. Why didn’t anyone understand that? Why were his choices always being questioned?

 

“Oh, well I guess if you _had_ to,” Lucifer spat sarcastically.

 

“Lucifer!”

 

Lucifer turned to glare at Sam, the hunter matching his ire. After a minute, he huffed and turned back the way they had come.

 

“Fine, defend the idiot. I’m going to… my room.” The phrase sounded uncomfortable coming out of his mouth and Dean couldn’t stop himself from comparing him to every stereotypical angsty teenager, in the history of ever.

 

“Don’t get comfortable,” He growled, and then smirked in satisfaction when Lucifer’s back stiffened on his way out.

 

“Was that really necessary?” He heard Sam ask, but he wasn’t listening. He was still vibrating from the build up towards a physical confrontation without a release. The need to hurt something was still pulsing through him, making his head pound behind his eyes. His arm was on fire.

 

“Dean,” Cas placed a hand on his shoulder, the pressure somehow calming. “Breathe.”

 

He took a couple of deep breaths before heading towards the exit.

 

“I’m going for a drive. Let me know how your slumber party with Satan goes.” He paused in the doorway and only just managed not to fidget when he asked, “You comin’, Cas?”

 

He looked momentarily surprised but then smiled softly. “Of course.”

 

Dean nodded and then continued his trek to the garage. Something told him controlling this thing on his arm was going to be a hell of a lot harder from now on.

 

* * *

 

Sam finds Lucifer staring at his new bookshelf, running his hands over the spines of all the books placed there.

 

“These are the books you gave to me to read,” he said, his voice filled with disbelief and maybe a little wonder. “They’re all here.”

 

“Well, yeah,” Sam said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I thought you needed something to start it off. You can add to it, if you want.”

 

Lucifer paused in running his hand across them, turning a deadpan expression towards him. “Thank you, Sam.” He then pulled out the book he had stopped on, holding the book out for him to see. “But I think I can do without the sparkling vampires.”

 

That startled a small laugh out of him as Lucifer placed Twilight down on the desk before crossing his arms. “I meant what I said about your brother, Sam. He has no idea what he’s dealing with. That thing on his arm will corrupt him to his core, and you will be the primary focus of its rage. I may not like Dean, but I honestly thought he was smarter than this.”

 

Sam’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Look, Lucifer, I’m not gonna explain what we’ve been through the past few years. There may have been a little manipulation involved, but ultimately, Dean had good reasons for doing what he did. Believe it or not, you weren’t our last apocalypse.”

 

“But I was the best, right?” Sam rolled his eyes, and Lucifer continued. “Seriously, Sam, you don’t even want to know what will happen to him if he dies with that thing. I know how you Winchesters are with all the dying for the greater good.”

 

Sam huffed and leaned back against the doorway. “We already know. He turns into a demon. He- You remember Metatron? He killed Dean. While he had the Mark. Dean was a demon when I finally found him but the Men of Letters, the people who built this place? They found a way to cure a demon. So, we just reset Dean back to human.”

 

Lucifer frowned in confusion. “That shouldn’t be possible. The way the Mark is, it should’ve been so fused to his soul that any curing would have destroyed him too.”

 

“I don’t know what to tell you, man, but it worked.”

 

“Huh.”

 

Something occurred to him, then. “Wait. Oh my god. You- you’re the one who made the Mark! Holy shit! Do you know how to fix it?” But Lucifer was already shaking his head, his entire posture turning sympathetic.

 

“I can’t, Sam. The Mark may have come from my grace, but I didn’t actually create it. I just gave it to Cain as a catalyst for his own darkness. It’s mutated into an almost completely separate entity now, soaked with evil and hatred.”

 

Sam sagged against the wall, nodding. He supposed that would be too easy a solution. But.

 

“What do you mean, you gave it to Cain as a catalyst?”

 

Sighing, Lucifer pulled out the desk chair and slid it towards Sam before he dropped onto the bed. Sam slowly sunk down into the chair, staring intently at Lucifer. This looked like it was about to be quite a story.

 

“For starters,” Lucifer sighed, “Cain and Abel were the first vessels for Michael and myself. So, naturally, I was curious. I wanted to get to know Abel, learn what made him tick. I didn’t really want to use him as a vessel at the time, I was still trying to convince my brothers and Father that humans weren’t worthy of our devotion. But Abel was…” Lucifer’s eyes dropped to his hands and an almost fond look came over his face. “Well. Abel was infuriatingly not awful. He was still a human, of course, but I didn’t hate him beyond that. Cain, on the other hand,” his eyes darkened. “He was a jealous, paranoid bastard. My Father always liked the way Abel worshipped Him more, and Cain was convinced that I was somehow helping him gain favor. At least, that’s what I assumed when he came to me insisting that he take Abel’s place.”

 

Sam noted that last bit was the first part of the story that lined up with what Cain had told Dean. He had never really met the man, so he was unsure how to compare the two sides.

 

“Of course,” Lucifer continued, “I wasn’t actually _doing_ anything, but I saw an opportunity. No one would listen to me about the human problem, so I thought I’d show them and mess with Michael at the same time. So, I created a spell to… _enhance_ any negative emotions and thoughts within Cain. So, the Mark was born.” A haunted look came over Lucifer’s face, and Sam got the feeling he wasn’t really seeing him anymore. “It worked better than I thought,” he said, his voice tinged with bitterness. “He murdered Abel. The first murder, Sam. Even I couldn’t have predicted that. I’m no stranger to killing ‘innocents’, but at the time, nothing like that had ever happened before.  It poisoned everything. Cain. The earth. Me.”

 

He turned hard eyes to Sam, and he had to suppress a shudder at the years of history and pain held in them.

 

“Can you understand, Sam? Angels live in constant communication, as one collective unit, and at the time, the thought of turning violence on one another was so abhorrent it was never a concern. I was horrified, in the beginning. But my family decided that it was my fault, not Cain, who, you know, actually murdered someone. I told them, if the urge to do so hadn’t already been in him, my spell wouldn’t have had anything to work with. But no one listened, they assumed I had cursed him from the beginning. Anyway,” he continued, after a few minutes of silence, “that’s what I meant by ‘catalyst’. The Mark is its own entity now. A separate thing than it even was since the last time I saw it.”

 

Sam nodded, still a little overwhelmed with the weight and age of this new knowledge. He’d never really given any thought to the Mark’s origins outside of what he may have needed to know to remove it. If he was honest with himself, he was a little bit in awe of the creature that was lounging in front of him, how old he was, how much he’d seen, and unknowingly instigated. Sadly, death was something that Sam dealt with almost daily; he can’t even imagine living in a time where it wasn’t the norm. Then to suddenly have that as a possibility? To have it introduced into a basically brand new world? Yeah, he can imagine the backlash.

 

Well, he didn’t have to. He lived it. Part of it was staring at him in silence.

 

“I think,” he started, then changed his mind. “Thank you for telling me. If you- I don’t know, happen to remember something you think might be useful, let me know. And uh, if you can, maybe just avoid Dean? Just until he mellows to the idea of you being here.”

 

Lucifer nodded but stopped him when he was almost out the door.

 

“I truly am sorry that you have to deal with this, Sam. I wish I could help.”

 

Sam considered him a moment. “It’s ok, Lucifer. I don’t blame you. I mean, maybe, technically, this is all your fault to begin with. But you didn’t do it on purpose. This wasn’t your end goal. And maybe you’re right - If that darkness wasn’t inside of Cain, we may not have ended up here. No one can really know. But now, at this point in time?” He shrugged. “Dean made his own choices. And we’ll deal with the consequences.”

 

Now Lucifer looked at him like he was some sort of complicated puzzle he couldn’t figure out. He excused himself to go make dinner, and wandered, in a daze, towards the kitchen.

 

He always needed a nap after he talked to Lucifer.


	7. Chapter 7

It was tense around the bunker for awhile. Eventually, Dean and Lucifer were able to avoid each other most of the time, learning when the other would be in certain places and acting accordingly.

 

When they couldn’t help but be in the same room, Sam and Cas managed to mostly keep the peace. Charlie, surprisingly, was a key factor in Dean and Lucifer getting along. Dean listened to most anything she said and Lucifer had some weird grudging respect for her that Sam didn't really understand but wasn’t about to question.

 

It was then Charlie, of course, who suggested movie night.

 

“I don’t know, Charlie…”

 

“Come on, Sam! Look, we all need a break. I, personally, am going to suffocate from the tension if I don't get to watch Hermione kick some ass. Besides,” here she dropped her voice, “If I’m leaving for my discount, evil version of Hogwarts soon, I want to have some fun family memories to get me through it.”

 

How was Sam supposed to argue with that? He already felt guilty asking Charlie to help Rowena with the book.

 

“And you want all of us?” He asked skeptically.

 

“Yes,” she nodded. “You guys need different memories of Lucifer, and he of you, if this is gonna work. I’m not saying one movie is gonna magically make everything better, but it’s a start. Something’s gotta give, Sam.”

 

He knew she was right. Keeping the peace wasn’t the same as being comfortable in your space, and he couldn’t imagine ever getting used to the tense air in the bunker. He didn’t see how putting them all in a small room together was going to fix that, but it also couldn’t hurt (that much) to try.

 

“Fine. Let the others know, I’ll talk to Lucifer. You better be ready to run some pretty extreme interference.”

 

Grinning, Charlie have him a salute before skipping down the hallway. “Aye aye, captain!”

 

* * *

 

Sam wasn’t sure how that conversation led him here, sitting on the couch with his legs spread wide and the literal devil propped on the floor between them, watching Harry Potter.

 

Initially grumbling about the ‘nerd family bonding, plus Lucifer, Dean had quickly claimed the couch, pulling Cas down next to him when the angel said that the movie was not something included in Metatron’s download. Sam claimed the other side of Cas, while Charlie perched in the overstuffed chair they had found shoved in storage.

 

When Lucifer had finally joined them, he almost immediately turned around, returning with a pillow from his room. To Sam’s chagrin, he had unceremoniously thrown the pillow on the floor in front of him and sat down, Sam’s legs bracketing him. He heard Dean snicker and he turned to glare at his brother before flipping him off. Lucifer didn’t fully understand physical boundaries, much like Cas when they first met, and he certainly didn’t understand the social implications of that position.

 

He was regretting not saying anything now. Lucifer had been nodding off for the past ten minutes, and Sam startled slightly when he felt a pressure on the inside of his left knee. Looking down, he realized the angel had fallen completely asleep, using Sam as a surrogate pillow.

 

He went completely still, not knowing how best to respond. Should he wake him up? Let him sleep? Sam knew how hard it was for Lucifer to get any sort of rest. On the other hand, this was intimate on a level he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with. He glanced sideways to see if anyone else had noticed, but Charlie was engrossed in the movie and Dean and Cas were huddled together, talking in low whispers, totally absorbed in each other.

 

Looking back at Lucifer, Sam was suddenly struck with the weight of his situation. This person, this being that had caused him and so many others untold pain and suffering, was asleep between his legs, the both of them in extremely vulnerable positions with each other. He was floored by the amount of trust that the angel had to have in him. What really surprised him is how important he considered that trust. For all intents and purposes, he should feel nothing but anger and disgust with Lucifer. Instead, he felt a shockingly strong wave of protectiveness rush through him, which was disturbing all on its own.

 

Almost unconsciously, he reached forward with his left hand, slowly, so as not to alert the others, and placed it on Lucifer’s head. A thrill ran through him, a combination of doing something he knew he shouldn’t, sneaking in the dark, and the pleasant softness of the angel’s hair. Tentatively, he ran his fingers through the strands once, twice, pausing only when Lucifer actually _snuggled_ further into his leg.

 

Feeling his face heat up, he looked around quickly to see if the others had caught him. Dean and Cas were still blissfully unaware of what was happening, but when he turned his gaze to Charlie, she was staring right at him, a smirk on her face.

 

He froze, staring at her like a deer in headlights, until she raised an eyebrow and turned back to the movie. Gulping, he leaned forward, eternally grateful that it wasn’t his brother who had caught him acting like a high schooler.

 

“Lucifer,” he whispered in the angel’s ear. He shook his shoulder gently, still talking. “Come on, man, you’re missing the movie, you gotta wake up.”

 

Lucifer muttered something unintelligible, but he did straighten up and try to focus, for which Sam was grateful.

 

The movie watching was uneventful for awhile. Then in the middle of a scene where Snape was being his usual self, Lucifer snorted in amusement, the first sound he’d made during the movie.

 

“What?” Sam asked, the others turning towards them curiously. 

 

“Nothing,” Lucifer waved his hand, “it’s just, he reminds me of Raphael. He has the personality of a brick.”

 

To everyone’s surprise, it was Dean who burst out laughing. “Dude, you think Snape is like your dick brother?” smiling wide, Dean leaned forward to see Lucifer better. “Wait till you read the books. There’s this character, Blaise? Literally couldn’t be more like him.”

 

“There’s a book of this movie?” Lucifer turned to Sam with wide eyes.

 

“You’ve read the Harry Potter books?” Sam exclaimed.

 

“Shut up,” Dean shot back.

 

“Can everyone be quiet so we can continue the movie?” Cas asked tiredly.

 

“You know, I see why you all would connect to this,” Lucifer mused, gesturing to the three on the couch. “The three main characters, breaking rules, fighting the bad guy as a team, using friendship to overcome obstacles. Sounds very familiar.”

 

“Hang on!” Charlie interjected in outrage, “If anyone is anyone in this movie, then _I_ am Hermione. Which means they can’t be those three!”

 

“Technically, Sam is all about the books and research, plus he has the hair,” Dean chuckled.

 

The rest of the night dissolved into everyone arguing over which characters they were most like, eventually turning into a deeper discussion of the characters’ psychology by the three humans while the angels watched, occasionally chiming in with thoughts or disagreements.

 

It wasn’t fixed, Sam knew that. Dean’s eyes still went tight when he looked at Lucifer and there were a few awkward, tense moments, but it was a start. The fact that they had all been in the same room this long without it getting violent was impressive.

 

It was a start.

 

* * *

 

Lucifer was in the middle of trying to puzzle out Harry’s anger issues in the fifth book when Sam walked into the library twirling a key ring around.

 

“Hey, Lucifer, you wanna go to the grocery store with me?”

 

Surprised, he looked up from his book in confusion. “You want me to go outside? Around other humans? Are you sure?”

 

Sam shrugged. “If you want. I think you should be able to behave yourself. Besides, I’d like the company. It’s a big run, gotta go to Hastings, and Dean and Cas aren’t up for it.”

 

Lucifer didn’t have to be asked twice. He’d gone on walks outside the bunker before, but nowhere near people. While not really looking forward to that part, getting to see something other than than same two square miles was welcome.

 

Besides, he’d never ridden in a car before.

 

* * *

 

Turns out, Castiel was right. Riding in a car was both confining and slow. Though probably not as much as it would have been had Lucifer not been adjusting to walking being his only method of transportation.

 

They spent the drive up to Hastings in quiet conversation between listening to the radio, Sam making a joke that Dean would throw a fit if he knew they were listening to pop music in his precious ‘Baby’.

 

Lucifer didn’t know what exactly was going on with Sam lately. More often than not, any time they spent together was much like this. Quiet, mostly comfortable, and interesting. Sam would give him these looks that, if Lucifer dared to hope, appeared friendly. He would soak up these moments because sometimes Sam gave him a different look, one that seemed so much… _more_ , something Lucifer didn’t understand. And that always led to Sam’s grumpy mood. He’d growl answers to questions, snap at him quicker, would sit as far from him as he could, and would avoid touching him like he had the plague.

 

That was something else Lucifer didn’t understand but was happy to just let happen. Sam would casually touch him, like it wasn’t a huge breach of whatever invisible barrier was supposed to be between them. Their fingers would brush when Sam handed him something, he’d pat his shoulder when they passed in the hallway. If they ended up sitting next to each other, then there was barely any space between them. It was exciting and frustrating in a way that Lucifer found indescribable.

 

When they reached the store, Sam guided him through all of the aisles, allowing him to put interesting looking items into the cart for him to try. Despite being disgusted by the digestive system, Lucifer quite enjoyed food. The way the tastes and textures could differ just by adjusting the combinations of things or the way you prepared it was fascinating.

 

He was staring at the back of a jar of pasta sauce, reading the directions on making spaghetti. Maybe he should try to cook his own dinner one night. He doubted Dean would eat anything he made, and Castiel didn’t need to eat. Maybe he’d make dinner for him and Sam, then.

 

Speaking of Sam, he felt him walk up behind him before a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

 

“Hey man, you ready to go? This was the last thing I needed,” he said, grabbing the bottle out of Lucifer’s hand and placing it in the shopping cart. “Come on, let’s check out and get out of here.”

 

Besides the cashier giving them a strange look for the amount of rock salt they were buying, the entire experience was quite uneventful. That is until Sam’s phone rang about 20 miles down the road back home.

 

“Hey, what’s up, Charlie?” Sam’s voice was warm and excited to talk to the little redhead. She had left a few days ago to take care of some errands and go to a ‘geek convention’, saying she wouldn’t be back for a while. Lucifer was irked to find he missed her presence around the bunker.

 

“ _No time for pleasantries, Sam, you’re being followed_.”

 

“What?” Lucifer watched in fascination as Sam slipped into his Hunter mode, eyes darting from mirror to mirror, posture straightening. “I haven’t seen anyone on our tail.”

 

“ _That’s because they’re doing it electronically. Long story short, my very complicated scanning program alerted me to a possible Styne near your location, and they’ve been moving in the same direction as you for the last ten minutes_.”

 

“Shit.” Sam clenched his jaw before continuing, “Is there anywhere we can pull off and hide, fight if necessary? I can’t lead them back to the bunker, Charlie.”

 

“ _Already on it. Keep driving for another seven miles, take the exit you see there. There’s a giant, incredibly convenient, abandoned warehouse two miles down that road on the right. Clear of civilians. I’ve texted Dean, he and Cas should be there in twenty minutes_.”

 

“Got it. Thanks, Charlie.”

 

“ _Love you, don’t die, call me when it’s over._ ”

 

“Will do.”

 

Flipping the phone shut, Sam looked over at him, frowning. “Can you handle a gun?”

 

“I can if necessary, but I’d be much more efficient with a blade.”

 

Sam nodded, keeping his eyes on the road and routinely checking the mirrors to try and spot their tail. Soon they were at the exit Charlie had mentioned, and not long after that they were pulling into the warehouse.

 

After parking around the side so the Impala couldn’t be seen from the road, Sam popped open the truck and handed Lucifer an angel blade. “Ok, game plan is we go into the main level of the building. I’d like to hide and avoid a fight, but it’d be worse for us to be cornered and hard to find for Dean and Cas. We wait for them to come to us and keep them talking as long as we can. Let me do the talking. They don’t know who you are, and if they did, I don’t want to know what they would do with that information. Understand?”

 

Lucifer nodded and they walked into the warehouse, locating the second door on the other side of the building and standing between the two. Luckily, it was still early in the afternoon so there was plenty of light coming in through the giant windows lining the top of the walls. There were old wooden scaffolds scattered around the large floor, trash from squatters, and occasional piles of cinder blocks.

 

Lucifer’s senses may be duller compared to when he was fully powered, but they were still greater than a normal human’s. After standing in tense silence for a few minutes, he closed his eyes, trying to listen for anyone approaching the warehouse and reached out to touch Sam’s arm when he did.

 

“There are three people approaching the door we came through,” he said quietly. “I can’t tell if they’re armed.”

 

Sam nodded grimly and raised his gun in the direction of the door while Lucifer slipped into a loose fighting stance.

 

Shortly, the door opened to reveal three men of average height, two of which were dressed in nondescript shirts and jeans, holding their guns in front of them. Flanking them was the person who was obviously the leader. He was wearing a white t-shirt, a black vest, and dark wash jeans and was more relaxed, trusting his bodyguards to take care of any threats, hands in his pockets. His hair was spiked in what Lucifer considered a strange pattern, and he could see the sneer on his face clearly.

 

“Well, well, what do we have here?” the leader tutted. “One of the pests who tried to destroy our property, perhaps?”

 

The three stopped about ten feet from them, and Lucifer moved slightly closer to Sam.

 

“Oh, and we don’t know this one. But look, he has a stick. How cute.”

 

Lucifer opened his mouth to retort but Sam beat him to it.

 

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want with us?”

 

“Who am I?” Spiky hair sneered. He walked around the other two so he was even with them. “I’m Bradley Styne. These are my cousins. And we want the Book.”

 

Lucifer resisted the urge to look at Sam for some sort of explanation because he had no idea what was going on here.

 

“We destroyed the Book,” Sam said. “Looks like you went through all that trouble for nothing.”

 

“Oh please, the Book can’t be destroyed by mere human effort. Besides, do you really underestimate us so easily? We were able to sense the moment it was uncovered and we know it still exists.”

 

“And yet, somehow you lost it for hundreds of years,” Sam mused, sounding bored. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucifer saw Dean and Cas appear just inside the entrance to the warehouse, and immediately begin advancing towards them.

 

“You insolent brat,” Bradley growled, pulling out his own gun. “We outnumber you. I suggest you drop your weapon.”

 

By this time, Sam had most likely also noticed Dean and Castiel, as he gingerly set his gun on the ground without any protest.

 

“Now,” Bradley began, “Our orders were to deliver the demand for the book. We were not given a kill order, unless absolutely necessary. ”

 

 _Castiel_ , Lucifer prayed silently. The angel quirked his head in acknowledgement while Lucifer inched further as slowly as he could, angling himself to be able to get between Sam and Bradley in a moment.

 

_You and Dean take out the other two. They’re closer to you anyways. I have the spiky one._

 

“But you know, now that I think about it,” Bradley raised his gun, pointing it in Sam’s direction. “This seems necessary. It only takes one person to deliver a message, after all. I think I’m gonna take great pleasure in this.”

 

Two things happened at once. From behind the Stynes, Dean growled, “Like hell you will,”, distracting all three of them and Lucifer lunged in front of Sam towards Bradley. He wasn’t quite fast enough to take him out before he got his gun up again, and Lucifer felt a flash of pain in his left arm as his blade sunk into Bradley’s stomach.

 

He registered the sound of gunshots and Sam shouting as he angled the blade upwards to ensure a swift death. As he watched the shock and life drain out of the fool’s face, he leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “You shouldn’t have threatened Sam.”

 

He pulled the blade out with a grunt and watched the lifeless body fall to the ground with satisfaction.

 

Sam came up next to him, his gun aimed at the body on the ground. A glance to the side showed the other two Stynes down as well, Dean and Castiel standing over them.

 

“You don’t need to keep pointing your gun at him, he’s quite dead,” Lucifer said when he turned back.

 

Almost immediately, Sam was in front of him and he hissed in pain when the hunter pressed a hand over his arm. He had forgotten he was shot.

 

“Are you stupid?!” Sam asked angrily, applying more pressure and attempting to stop the already slowed bleeding. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

 

Lucifer shrugged his good shoulder. “Maybe, but it’s just a graze. I couldn’t risk him shooting you. Dean would have killed me, anyway.”

 

All he got was a glare. “This isn’t a joke, Lucifer. You’re not invincible anymore. You can’t just charge in thinking you are!”

 

“At the time, I was more worried about _your_ safety!” Lucifer snapped, annoyed. “Besides, It’s not like anyone would be broken up about it. Are you telling me it would really be so bad if I died?”

 

“Yes!” Sam shouted.

 

For a few moments, only silence followed Sam’s outburst. They just stared at each other in shock before Lucifer finally breathed, “Oh.”

 

He placed his right hand over Sam’s on his arm. “I’m fine, Sam. I’ve got enough grace to heal myself slowly or Castiel can do it.”

 

As if waiting to be mentioned, Castiel cleared his throat and came into their field of vision.

 

“I will heal him, Sam. Why don’t you help Dean move the other bodies?”

 

“Sure,” Sam mumbled, slowly pulling his hands away. He wouldn’t make eye contact anymore, and Lucifer watched him as he walked towards Dean. He had never experienced a feeling so intense as what he felt now, except for his Father. It wasn’t the same, of course, but the overwhelming nature of it was familiar.

 

He felt a hand on his shoulder and a second later his arm was repaired. That should make Sam happy.

 

“Thank you, brother.”

 

Castiel gave him a hard look. “You need to be careful, Lucifer. Sam is important to all of us, and should you hurt him, I would not hesitate to destroy you.”

 

He walked a few steps forward before giving Lucifer a small smile.

 

“And you’re welcome.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Sam could not believe Lucifer had been at the bunker for over a month now.

 

Like, what the actual hell? How was this his reality? He’d be the first to admit that his life was unconventional to begin with, but at a certain point, he has to wonder if maybe God or Fate or whoever was pushing the envelope just a bit. Sometimes it was just so hard to believe what was happening was real.

 

Like the string of what sounded like Enochian curses coming from the kitchen, for example.

 

Carefully, Sam poked his head around the entrance to the kitchen and almost choked trying to stop his laugh. Lucifer was standing in the middle of the kitchen, scowling at the ground, where it looked like a bag of flour had exploded. The white powder was everywhere; On the floor, the cabinets, the counter, but more importantly, it was _covering_ Lucifer.

 

Stepping inside, he leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “What, uh,” Sam did his best to contain the laugh, but struggled harder with the smile, “what’re you up to, Lucifer?” He asked in amusement. The angel looked up in surprise and then levelled a glare in his direction.

 

“What does it _look_ like I’m doing, Sam?” He huffed. “I was trying to make cookies from the recipe I found in that,” he said, pointing to the ancient recipe box on the counter, “but I dropped the flour and now it’s everywhere, including your shirt.” He continued to stare angrily down at the mess, like it had personally offended him. Only then did Sam realize he was wearing one of his old flannel shirts that Sam had given him back before they had done an actual clothes run for him.

 

The sight of Lucifer wearing his clothes, covered in flour, and basically pouting made something ache in Sam’s chest and suddenly he was furious. He had been trying so hard to not feel anything past maybe tentative friendship for the angel over the last couple weeks. How dare he be so stupidly endearing? They weren’t- they couldn’t be this, they couldn’t be anything more. Not with their history, not after what Lucifer had done to him. How could he continue to forget that?

 

“Sam?” he heard Lucifer ask in a cautious voice. Sam realized he was gripping the counter so hard his knuckles were white. Who knew what his face looked like.

 

“Are you ok? I’m sorry about the mess. I’ll clean it up, of course. I’m pretty sure you can throw your clothes in that wash…ing… machine?”

 

As suddenly as his anger hit, it was gone. His shoulders slumped and he looked at Lucifer sadly. “It’s fine, Lucifer, I’m not angry at any of that. I’m not really angry at all. I’m just frustrated with myself. I keep forgetting what you did to me, during the apocalypse and in the cage. I keep wanting to think of you as a friend,” _yeah, sure, just a friend_ , “and then I remember why that’s not a good idea, not with my terrible history of trusting the wrong people.”

 

For a minute, all they did was stare at each other. Then Lucifer sighed, and gestured towards the table. “Come sit down for a minute, Sam.”

 

He debated for a second but didn’t see any reason not to do as he was asked. Sinking into a chair, he watched as Lucifer washed his hands and then made his way over to the table, taking the seat opposite him.

 

“I wasn’t gonna talk about the Cage,” Lucifer began, and Sam immediately tensed. “But with everything I’ve heard, I think I need to.” There was another silence during which Lucifer just seemed to study Sam with a calculated look. “I can’t say anything about the last time I was here, Sam. I did what I thought I had to do. It was important to me. And while I’d like to say I wouldn’t do it again knowing what I know now, I can’t for sure. I’m not a good person, Sam, though I don’t think I’m really as ‘evil’ as I used to be. But what’s done is done, and I won’t apologize because I’d be lying. I can only apologize that it hurt you.”

 

Sam processed this while he considered how he felt. The thing is, he understood why Lucifer had done all of the things he did. He had been inside his head, they had talked about some of this before, and while he still believed it had been wrong, he wasn’t angry at him. He nodded at Lucifer to continue.

 

“The Cage is a different matter. I promised when we first met that I would never hurt you or lie to you. I didn’t keep that promise in the Cage, even though it was unintentional.”

 

Sam frowned. “What do you mean, ‘unintentional’?”

 

Lucifer seemed to consider the question before asking, “What do you remember about the Cage, Sam? Anything specific?”

 

He was getting irritated that Lucifer wasn’t just coming out and admitting what happened, but he knew he didn’t do anything without a reason.

 

“No, nothing specific. Not the way I usually experience memories.” Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gathering his thoughts. “It’s more like… flashes. Flashes of pain, and torture, sometimes with specific weapons. When the wall in my mind started breaking, that’s what I kept seeing. Blood soaked walls, instruments that I could feel cutting into me, sometimes just things I couldn’t make out but I felt all the same. Then, when it finally broke all the way, it was nothing but agony for awhile. Then you appeared.”

 

He looked up to meet Lucifer’s eyes and was momentarily derailed by the sadness and regret he saw there.

 

“Anyway,” he began again, “you appeared. At that point it wasn’t so much pain anymore, it was just constant psychological torture. My hallucination of you wouldn’t let me sleep, he was constantly talking, or singing, or making other things appear around me. I ended up in a mental hospital until Cas managed to take the brunt of it away.”

 

“Oh, Sam,” Lucifer breathed, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I should have done more to protect you.”

 

“Protect me from what?” Sam asked.

 

“Me and Michael. See, you were never actually tortured. Not with any of those weapons your mind showed you. Neither of us ever touched you with intent. But think about the situation.”  Lucifer leaned towards him, hands clasped together on the table, and Sam could see how he was trying to stress the importance of what he was about to say. “The Cage was built for one archangel: Me. As you know, it was never meant to hold two, let alone two archangels _and_ a human soul. Already, you were pressed too closely to the blistering power of our grace. Then the fighting started. I’m sure you remember Michael’s lovely personality.”

 

Sam nodded.

 

“Well, Michael was not happy to be stuck in the Cage with me. He was livid, in fact. We began fighting almost immediately. All of that destruction you were trying to save the world from, concentrated in a small space, and you were the only thing around to take the damage.” Here he paused, looking at Sam with a mixture of sadness and guilt. “In the beginning, I tried to protect you as much as I could. But Michael and I were already evenly matched, and when my attention was split between fighting him and protecting you, I took too much damage. He would have smote me out of existence, and then turned his anger on you. I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t want to die. I abandoned you, convincing myself that it would be better for you to experience the blowback of our fight than Michael’s focused attention if I lost. Even now, knowing how it affected you, I’m not sure I could have made a different decision.”

 

Sam was a whirlwind of shock and disbelief. All this time, he thought he had experienced all of those things he’d seen, convinced that Lucifer had broken his promise in his anger and tortured him for years. He was having trouble adjusting to the new information, unsure if he could believe it.

 

“So, wait,” he began slowly, “if that’s true, then why was I seeing all of those things?”

 

Lucifer hummed, steepling his hands together in front of his face. “If I had to guess, I’d say it was your mind’s way of processing the trauma your soul experienced in a way it could understand. The human mind has no basis for the kind of pain caused by angel grace on an unprotected soul. So, it approximated what you experienced using what you already knew of torture techniques. I’m not sure about the hallucination of me, but that could probably be explained by what you expected me to be, and the fact that you were most familiar with my grace and not Michael’s.”

 

This was too much information to take in at once. Minutes passed with Sam blankly looking at Lucifer, the table, and the rest of the kitchen in turn. Lucifer didn’t move, for which Sam was grateful. He just sat patiently and quietly as Sam thought through what he’d just heard and worked out how he felt about it.

 

“This is gonna take… this is gonna take some time for me to process,” he said finally.

 

Lucifer nodded his understanding. “Of course, Sam. There’s no rush. I just wanted you to know what really happened. I… I do hope that eventually, we might be friends as well,” he said hesitantly.

 

Knowing that Lucifer also wanted to be friends, when Sam was relatively sure he didn’t know how that worked, made him smile. He still needed to think things through, but for now, he felt exponentially lighter about the idea of allowing himself to feel things for the angel.

 

“I think that’s definitely a possibility,” he said warmly.

 

Lucifer smiled, and Sam was suddenly reminded that they were having a very serious, potentially life changing conversation in a kitchen covered in flour.

 

Chuckling, he reached forward and wiped a streak of flour off of Lucifer’s cheek, causing his eyes to grow wide.

 

“I think maybe we should clean up the kitchen before Dean finds this mess.”

 

“I suppose,” Lucifer sighed dramatically. “I really wanted to make those cookies though.”

 

“Well, come on then,” Sam got up, squeezing Lucifer’s shoulder as he passed him. “I’m pretty sure we have another bag of flour in the pantry. I’ll help.”

 

Several hours and a couple of flour fights later, Sam declared they were the best cookies he’d ever had.

 

* * *

 

Charlie was going to punch Rowena in the face.

 

It wouldn’t solve anything, but it would feel _so_ good. The snotty witch was like sandpaper to her soul, with her stupid perfect hair and obvious disdain for anything Charlie says or does. Unless, of course, it actually works in decoding something in the book and then she gets the grudging eyebrow of “I guess you’re not a complete idiot”.

 

Screw her, man.

 

Which was why she had taken to hiding in the room adjacent to the main area, one computer set up to watch for the Stynes and Metatron and the other one she was using to make a cipher to decode this spell book.

 

They’d made some progress, but nothing actually worth anything. This book was dark stuff, and Charlie was infinitely glad that most of the spells they had figured out required such obscure ingredients. The thought of what Rowena could do with some of them made her sick to her stomach.

 

She was broken out of her musings by a loud beeping noise from the tracking computer. Rolling her wheely chair (which she had insisted on and Sam reluctantly got her) over to look at the screen, she almost squealed with excitement. It looked like Metatron could avoid security cameras all he wanted, but even he couldn’t escape the dreaded selfie. He was only in the background of some tweens’ Instagram photo at some bakery in Nashville, but it was enough.

 

Fingers flying over the keyboard, Charlie pulled up all the security and ATM cameras along that street, making sure to narrow her social media search to anyone checked in around that area.

 

She knew exactly where he was and what he was wearing now. There was no way he was going to escape her.

 

As she tracked him, she picked up her phone to call Dean.

 

“ _What’s up, Charlie?_ ”

 

“I’ve found Metatron!” She said excitedly.

 

“ _What? Where is he?_ ”

 

Rolling her eyes, she couldn’t help saying “‘That’s awesome, Charlie, you’re a wonder among women, we’d never be able to anything without you,’” 

 

“ _Charlie_.”

 

“Sorry, sorry. He’s in Nashville. I’ve got him now, so I won’t lose him. It looks like he’s holed up in a homeless shelter downtown. He’s probably settling down for the night, you could catch him before he leaves in the morning if you peace out literally right now.”

 

“ _On it, thanks. Let us know if anything changes, it’ll probably be me and Cas_.”

 

“Will do!”

 

“ _And Charlie?_ ”

 

“Yes?”

 

“ _You’re awesome, a wonder among women, and we’d never be able to do anything without you_.”

 

“I know,” she said with a grin.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, thanks, Charlie,” Sam hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes.

 

The Book looked more and more like a dead end. They’d been at it for more than a month now and nothing. Oh, they’d found things. But nothing to do with the Mark. At least nothing on removing it. They’d found something about making it more powerful, so they were focusing on that section but Charlie wasn’t optimistic. The pattern to the spells were all horrible, most of them dark things that she swore she’d have nightmares about for the rest of her life.

 

She had tried to be delicate about it, but she didn’t think this was the kind of book that would have anything about _removing_ a curse.

 

Sam had no idea what to do. He had been really banking on the book having something about the Mark in it, something they could use to get rid of it. He hadn’t really realized how hard he was hoping it would work until the possibility was gone. Now he just felt empty, a growing scream filling his throat and choking him.

 

Glaring at all of the books open on the table, none of them helpful at all, he grabbed the nearest one and threw it across the room. The loud thud when it connected with the wall wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he was hoping.

 

He was glad Dean and Cas were off collecting Metatron. Lucifer had gone to sleep a couple hours ago, so there was no one around to witness his tantrum. Slumping back down in his chair, he pushed down the despair threatening to overwhelm him and pulled another book over in front of him. He would not give up. Dean never gave up on him, and he was ready to do the same.


	9. Chapter 9

Lucifer jerked awake so hard, he nearly fell off the bed. He pulled in huge lungfuls of air, trying to think through the pain in his head.

 

Sam’s soul was _screaming_.

 

Stumbling to his feet, Lucifer yanked open the door, moving as fast as he could down the hallway. He had enough clarity to curse his inability to fly at a time like this.

 

When he made it into the main room, he nearly collapsed in relief to see Sam sitting at the table, surrounded by books, looking tired and dejected but in one piece.

 

“Sam,” he gasped, sliding to the floor in the doorway. The hunter looked up in surprise but his face shifted to alarm at the sight of Lucifer on the floor.

 

“Lucifer? What’s wrong?” He quickly crossed the room, kneeling in front of the angel.

 

Without speaking, Lucifer raised his hand and pressed it against Sam’s sternum. Gathering the scraps of grace he still possessed, he pushed it through the contact, making it as calm and soothing as possible as it washed over Sam.

 

Almost immediately, the sound of Sam’s agony diminished to a bearable level, barely a blip, and Lucifer collapsed against the wall, breathing deep.

 

After a few moments, Sam broke the silence with “Lucifer? What just happened?”

 

Before he could answer, Sam’s phone went off. “You should answer that. It’s probably Castiel.” His brother would have been able to sense a little of that with the intensity and his familiarity with Sam.

 

Sam held his gaze for another second before getting up to answer the phone.

 

Lucifer listened to the one-sided conversation with one ear.

 

“Dean? What’s wrong?... What are you talking about, I’m fine… Hi, Cas… Yeah, I’m totally fine, buddy…” Pause. “I mean…” He glanced over at Lucifer and raised an eyebrow. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on, but whatever you sensed, I think Lucifer did too. He seemed really messed up, then he did something to me, and now he doesn’t look panicky anymore… Yeah, I will, thanks, Cas. I’ll see you and Dean in a few hours.”

 

He clicked the phone off and walked over to where Lucifer was still sitting and looked expectantly down at him. Lucifer held eye contact, not feeling like speaking first.

 

“Well?” Sam demanded. “Are you gonna tell me what the heck that was? Cas said something felt wrong with my soul?” He let some worry show in his expression. “Is it… is it over? Whatever was attacking me? And why didn’t I feel anything?”

 

Lucifer let out a humorless laugh “Nothing was attacking you, Sam. Except maybe yourself.”

 

At Sam’s confused look, he sighed and pushed himself off the floor.

 

“Can I have some coffee before we have this conversation?” Lucifer asked as he walked to the table.

 

Wordlessly, Sam headed towards the kitchen as Lucifer sunk into the nearest chair and rubbed his eyes.

 

Once he realized that Sam wasn’t in any danger from an outside source, it had quickly become clear what had happened. Humans were already skittish about talking about things like depression on a normal day. Lucifer didn’t anticipate this being pleasant.

 

He doubted his touching Sam’s soul in any way, despite his good intentions, would go over well either. They had finally reached a sort of balance in their relationship and he may have just ruined it.

 

After a minute, Sam returned with two cups of coffee and set one down in front of Lucifer.

 

“So,” he said, plopping in his seat. “I’m listening.”

 

Lucifer sipped his coffee in thought.

 

“First, let me explain what happened and then I’ll try to explain _why_ it happened. And you’re probably not gonna like either part.”

 

Sam shot him an unimpressed look and he continued. “What do you know about souls, Sam?”

 

Sam frowned. “Well, I know they hold a person’s conscious and emotions. And they can be used as a form of energy.”

 

Lucifer nodded his approval. “Very good. They’re also similar in design to an angel’s grace, in that they operate as wavelengths. Your soul was in such pain that Castiel and myself could sense the increase in your… volume.”

 

Sam shifted uncomfortably. “So, does that mean that whatever happened, other angels heard it too?”

 

“I doubt it,” Lucifer said, “Castiel knows your soul’s frequency by now, and we’re perfectly synced. That, and the intensity of your emotions, is probably why I could sense it even with my grace bound.”

 

“Wait,” Sam looked confused and slightly worried. “What do you mean, we’re ‘perfectly synced’?”

 

Lucifer sighed, trying to think of a simplified way to explain this.

 

“Ok. Think of it like this. Angels are radios and souls are radio stations. Some stations are clearer than others, based on the frequency. Different angels can pick up different soul frequencies with various levels of clarity and strength. But we have to tune in, and even then, the soul usually has to be projecting on some level.” Lucifer paused, giving Sam time for the information to sink in. When he indicated for Lucifer to continue, he picked up the explanation.  “So, with Castiel, your soul isn’t one of his clearer stations, usually, but I think he’s made a point to learn it. And, well, you can probably figure out me. It wouldn’t be very comfortable if the angel and the angel’s true vessel’s frequencies didn’t match up. If you were projecting or I was tuned in, I could feel your most basic emotions pretty easily. I’m never tuned in,” Lucifer was quick to add. “It’s pretty rude to do without consent.”

 

Sam nodded absently, staring off somewhere past Lucifer’s shoulder. After a few minutes of silence, he turned his gaze back to Lucifer. “Is that why Cas couldn’t tell I didn’t have my soul when he pulled me from the cage?”

 

Lucifer raised his eyebrows, surprised. Not what he thought Sam was going to focus on. “Most likely. I’m guessing it didn’t occur to him that your soul and your body could be separated, and since he never sensed anything from you before, he wouldn’t have sensed that anything was different.”

 

“Huh,” Sam huffed. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair and Lucifer couldn’t help tracking the movement.

 

“You still haven’t really explained what happened,” Sam stated, although his face said he could guess, “or what you did to make it stop.”

 

Lucifer leaned forward, setting his clasped hands on the table and fixing Sam with a serious look.

 

“What happened is that your soul was in so much pain that even with my bound grace, and not being ‘tuned in’, it woke me up with such crushing agony, I could barely think straight.” Lucifer watched Sam closely through his explanation. With every word, his face grew more distressed.  “Castiel was able to hear it a little, even from his distance. As to what I did…” At this point he hesitated, knowing Sam would be upset. But there really hadn’t been another option. “I sent my grace in a pulse of calm to your soul. I know you don’t like people messing with you, Sam, but please understand that I didn’t know what else to do. You were screaming at me, and I just needed to make it stop; Or at least make it bearable.” By the end of it, Lucifer was doing his best to not sound pleading.

 

There was a long silence while Lucifer watched emotion after emotion play over Sam’s face in rapid succession. He was able to pick out anger and hurt pretty easily but others went too quick for him to pinpoint. Resignation seemed to be the final winner.

 

“I’m not happy that you did something to my soul without my permission,” Sam began, and Lucifer‘s shoulders drooped unconsciously. “But,” he continued, “I understand why you did it. You looked pretty bad when you came in here.”

 

Lucifer perked up, but kept his face neutral. Sam didn’t look done.

 

Sam leaned forward, his eyes boring into Lucifer’s. “Now that I know that that’s a thing that happens, I want to be asked next time.”

 

Lucifer nodded his understanding. “Of course, Sam. Although I sincerely hope that there is never a next time.”

 

“So then how do I stop it?” Sam leaned back in his chair, but his gaze remained steady. “You still haven’t told me what caused my soul to freak out.”

 

“That’s because I’m not really sure.”

 

“Wait,” he held up a hand when Sam opened his mouth to respond. “I’m not finished. You weren’t under attack, which means the pain came from you. Usually, only incredible despair or grief can make a soul cry out like that.” Lucifer tried to gauge Sam’s reaction but his face gave nothing away. “So, the real question is, why are you experiencing such despair, Sam?”

 

He held his breath, waiting for any kind of response from Sam.

 

And waited.

 

Let it not be said that Dean and Castiel were the only ones able to hold eye contact for a ridiculously long time.

 

Suddenly, Sam’s shoulders drooped, his whole body sagging like someone had cut his strings.

 

“It’s Dean,” he choked out, voice so full of grief that Lucifer’s heart clenched in his chest.

 

He ran a hand over his face in exhaustion, and took a shaky breath before continuing. “I just don’t know how to save him, Lucifer. He’s getting worse. And the only real lead I had just called to say it’s probably a dead end, and I just don’t know what to _do_.”

 

Biting the inside of his cheek, Lucifer debated if now was the time to speak up. A sharp pulse of pain from Sam’s soul made his decision.

 

“There… may be a way to remove the Mark from your brother. _But_ ,” he stressed, when Sam looked up hopefully, “I’m not sure if it would work and I don’t think you’d like the outcome if it did.”

 

Sam frowned. “I don’t understand.”

 

He sighed. “I think- Since the Mark was originally made from my grace, I could sort of… suck it out of Dean, like a poison, and purify it so it’s only my grace left.”

 

Sam was sitting up straight now, looking at him intently. “You really think that could work?”

 

“I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but I think so, yes. Then there’s the issue of what happens after.” Lucifer leaned forward, propping his head on his hand. “I don’t know how this binding works. If I get a surge of power, it may immediately be bound with the rest of my grace. But it also may not. So, if it worked, it could potentially give me a burst of power of unknown strength.”

 

Sam looked down at his hands playing with his coffee cup, his face thoughtful.

 

“Why didn’t you mention this before?’

 

Lucifer shrugged. “When I first got here, you had me chained in a dungeon, surrounded by a ring of holy fire. I didn’t think you would find any situation where I got power to be a good idea.”

 

Sam nodded slowly, before steeling his gaze. “Well, honestly, this just falls into the category of ‘fix one problem at a time’. If you decided to go off with this power, we’d deal with it. I just need Dean better. Right now.”

 

Lucifer bowed his head in acceptance of his answer, only marginally disheartened that Sam would assume him to be a problem after the fact. With his reputation, he can hardly blame him.

 

Standing up, Sam stretched his arms over his head before grabbing both their cups. “Well, I’m going to sleep. Sorry for waking you up, but I’m glad we sort of have a plan now, if we can get Dean on board.”

 

Lucifer gave him a small smile. “It’s no problem, Sam. I’m happy to help. Goodnight.”

 

The hunter hesitated in the doorway before turning around with a determined expression, causing Lucifer to raise his eyebrows in question. “For the record,” Sam said, “even if you do get power from this, I don’t think you’d use it to hurt us. Not anymore.”

 

Lucifer felt warmth fill him and couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his face. “Thank you, Sam,” he said quietly.

 

Sam nodded. “Goodnight, Lucifer.”

 

* * *

 

“No! No way, Sam!”

 

Cas stood awkwardly to the side as his two closest friends glared at each other. Glancing to the side, he saw Lucifer was watching warily from his seat at the table.

 

“Come on, Dean! This is what we’ve been waiting for! It won’t hurt to at least try!”

 

He wished Sam had waited until they had at least slept some. After handing Metatron off to Hannah, Dean had insisted they drive back immediately, against Cas’s better judgement. He had noticed that the Mark tended to have more sway over Dean when he was tired.

 

“Won’t hurt? Won’t _hurt_?! How is giving the devil a power boost not going to hurt anyone, Sam?” Dean was so red that Castiel was beginning to worry about his blood pressure.

 

“We don’t know that he would get any power from it! And even if he did, I don’t think he’d be a threat to us anymore. Besides, it’s a better plan than just letting you get worse and _worse_ and then going psycho murderer on the world! Do you _want_ to turn into Cain, Dean? Because that’s what you’re heading for and you know it!”

 

“Cas?” His eyes widened when Dean turned towards him. “What do you think about all this?”

 

Castiel bit the inside of his cheek. He knew what Dean wanted him to say. He wanted him to be on his side. But he just couldn’t.

 

“I believe that Sam may be correct,” he began, and almost cringed from the intensity of Dean’s glare. “Lucifer would not be much of a threat, regardless of any power boost he received from the Mark. Not with all of us together. And I also believe that there is a good chance he wouldn’t turn against us, even if he did happen to grow strong again.”

 

“Dean,” he continued, now with a little more pleading in his voice, “this is what we’ve been looking for. A way to save you from the Mark. We don’t have any better leads. I think this is something worth trying.”

 

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, his phone rang.

 

He turned away angrily and answered with a growled “What?!”

 

“Whoa, easy there tiger. What’s got your panties in a twist?”

 

Ah, maybe Charlie would be able to calm him down some.

 

“Nothing, Charlie. Just everyone around me is a crazy person. What d’ya need?”

 

“I just wanted to let you know that I am awesome. Like, seriously, there is no one better than me at what I do, I’m truly the best at-”

 

“Charlie,” Dean growled again.

 

“Right, right, sorry. I guess I’ll just tell you - I found the Stynes.”

 

“You what?” Castiel straightened up when he heard the news.

 

“Yeah, I found their main house or whatever. I just sent you their address,” Sure enough, he heard a faint ding come from the phone. “It’s a pretty posh place. Took me forever to burrow into their security systems to confirm it was them.”

 

“Thanks, Charlie, that’s awesome,” Dean said, cutting her off from any more talk. “I’ll let you know what we’re gonna do.” With that, he hung up the phone before she could pick up the thread of conversation again.

 

Turning around, he glared at all of them in turn.

 

“Charlie found the Stynes. I’m going on a drive, _alone_.” Cas’s heart sunk when that last part was said with a pointed look at him. “When I get back, I’m gonna hope you two have come to your senses and we’re gonna pretend this conversation never happened. Then we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do about those freaks.”

 

With that, he marched out of the room towards the garage, leaving Castiel and Sam looking at each other in equal parts frustration and sadness.

 

* * *

 

Dean should have felt guilty about lying to his brother and Cas, but he didn’t. He’d been gone for a few hours, not long enough to raise suspicion, and he was fuming.

 

Pulling up to the tall wrought iron gate, he weighed his options and decided he’d take his gun and find any other weapons inside. It’d be too difficult to scale the fence with something in his hand.Getting over the gate took a little more effort than it would have a few years ago, but it still didn’t take very long for him to make it. Sam would’ve probably insisted they do this sneakily, but Dean didn’t care. Instead, he walked straight up the driveway, waving at the security cameras he saw mounted in the trees, the Mark pulsing and making him see the world in red. By the time he made it to the front door, there were three men standing outside looking intimidating. None had their weapons out, and that was the worst mistake they could have made.

 

The middle one opened his mouth, no doubt to say something about trespassing, or to demand what it is he wants, but it didn’t matter. Dean whipped out his gun and took all of them out before a single sound could escape. Once he entered the big foyer, he didn’t even pause to admire the obviously overpriced and gaudy decor, just headed straight up the stairs.

 

A girl that looked like a maid stepped out of the first room on his left and without a word, he shot her twice in the chest, not even breaking stride. Dean could feel a small part of himself demanding he stop, that he look and see how old that girl had been, but it was overpowered by the fire raging from his arm. She worked for the Stynes. She deserved to die.

 

Rounding the corner at the end of the hallway he was suddenly hit with a wave of vertigo, and he stumbled into the wall before righting himself. He quickly looked around for any enemies, but didn’t see anyone. He felt fine. Maybe it had been a spell intended to stop him, or someone like him. He smirked. They had no idea who they were dealing with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's a fun head canon I have about Angel grace and souls that didn't make it into the fic - this idea of an angel and a human having similar frequencies is how Guardian Angels became a thing people believed in. Because when a human is in peril and their soul is screaming at any angel that can hear it, that angel will almost reflexively show up and save the human because sweet father that hurts MAKE IT STOP.


	10. Chapter 10

Lucifer wished Dean would get his head out of his ass so Sam would stop worrying about him. He’d been gone for over twelve hours and stress was coming off of the younger hunter and Castiel in waves.

 

“I’m sure he’s fine, Sam,” Castiel tried to assure him once again. “You know how he gets. He just needs space to think.”

 

“Yeah, I know how he gets, Cas, that’s what I’m worried about. Especially with that thing on his arm.” Lucifer opened his mouth to try and soothe him but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

 

They all looked at each other in surprised concern. Sam pulled out his gun and started up the stairs, keeping it down at his side. Castiel wasn’t that far behind with his angel blade.

 

Well, Lucifer wasn’t going to just stand down here just because he didn’t have a weapon. As quietly as they could, they made their way to the door and Sam signaled them to get into position. On three, he opened the door to reveal an unassuming slim man dressed in an expensive looking three piece suit, waiting with a smirk on his face.

 

“Ah, I see we have the whole family. Excellent. That’ll make this easier.”

 

“Who are you?” Sam demanded.

 

“Who I am isn’t important. All you need to know is that I represent the Styne family.”

 

Instantly, Sam had his gun aimed at the man while Cas and Lucifer shifted into fighting stances.

 

Rolling his eyes, the man scoffed, “Point a gun at me if it’ll make you feel better, but it’s really not necessary. I’m here with a message, nothing more.”

 

“The last Styne who only had a message tried to kill me, so yeah, I think I’ll keep my gun, thanks,” Sam answered tersely.

 

Shrugging, the man pulled what looked to Lucifer like a giant square version of Sam’s cell phone around to face them.

 

“The message is simple. You have something we want - the Book of the Damned.”

 

Lucifer’s eyes widened. That’s the Book these idiots wanted? Did Sam actually have it? 

 

“The Book was destroyed,” Castiel’s gravelly voice cut in.

 

The man shot him an unimpressed look. “Please, let’s not do this dance. The Book is fine and you have it. You know it, we know it, let’s move on. Now, since our past negotiations have been... unfruitful, we decided to try a different approach this time. A trade.” With that, he pressed a small button on the side of the screen, and Lucifer’s stomach dropped when he saw Dean appear on the screen. He was tied to a chair in what looked like a room with light colored flooring, tall ceilings, and raised benches.

 

Sam cursed and took a step forward before the man raised his hand. “Ah, ah, ah, I wouldn’t do that. If I don’t check in during the next ten minutes, he gets killed. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.”

 

“You bastard,” Sam spat and Lucifer placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. They had Dean, which meant they currently had the upper hand. Glancing at his brother, he saw that while his vessel had barely flinched, Castiel’s grace was vibrating with anger.

 

Stepping around Sam, he met the man’s eyes calmly. “What is it exactly you want?”

 

Smirking, the man shut down the screen. “Simple. We currently have Dean in a sort of… stasis. It was one of the few spells we were able to decipher from the Book before it was lost. It puts the bearer of the Mark of Cain into a state of utter control. So,” he slid his hand into his pocket, grin widening. “We’re keeping him in a high school gymnasium in Wheaton, at this address.” He tossed a piece of paper at them, Castiel grabbing it out of the air.

 

“The deal is, you bring us the Book, and we’ll give him back to you, no harm, no foul. But if you don’t? We’ll release him into a school full of children.”

 

Not giving them a chance to react, he turned around and began walking away. “You have until noon tomorrow. We’ll be waiting in the principal's office.”

 

Lucifer closed the door slowly, all of them letting the man’s words sink in. The thing that finally broke the silence was Sam’s quietly breathed out, “ _Shit_.”

 

* * *

 

As they walked through the doors of the high school, Lucifer just knew this was going to end badly. The entire night had been spent trying to come up with a plan that was least likely to end with dead children, although Lucifer wasn’t quite as passionate about that part as Sam and Castiel were. They thought about just going straight for Dean, but realized by now they had probably moved him to a different location, the set up far too obvious. Even if they left him in the gym, he would most likely be guarded and there was no guarantee the could get to him before they triggered him somehow. And of course, they couldn’t actually give them the book, that would just cause a whole new slew of problems. If they even kept their end of the deal.

 

What had finally been decided was they would go to the principal’s office with a fake book, stalling as long as they could, and hopefully take out whoever was there before they could give the order to set Dean loose on the school. Afterwards, they could find Dean and Lucifer could try to remove the Mark. Once Castiel had calmed down from wanting to smite Sam for lying to them, he had suggested Charlie and Rowena search the book to try and find a way to counteract whatever spell the Stynes had cast on Dean in case Lucifer’s plan didn’t work.

 

There were so many problems with the whole thing, but they didn’t have much choice.

 

Surprisingly, no one stopped them as they made their way through the halls. Granted, it was class time and Sam had explained that they would be arriving between lunch periods, whatever that meant, and so it was mostly empty on the way there. They had also noticed, when looking at the blueprints of the building, that the gym and the office were on opposite sides of the school.

 

What a coincidence.

 

Sam didn’t even hesitate when they stepped up to the door. He just twisted the handle and walked right in, Castiel and Lucifer right on his heels.

 

The three men inside didn’t flinch.

 

The man who delivered the message to them was sitting behind the large desk against the back left wall, leaning back in the chair, completely at ease. A second man in a similar suit was perched on the edge of the desk, his hands clasped loosely and hanging in front of him. The third one was a giant of a man, almost as tall as Sam, and he was in a loose t-shirt and jeans, standing about a foot in front of the other two with his arms crossed. He was obviously a body guard.

 

“Ah, gentlemen, so glad you could make it,” the man at the desk grinned.

 

“I want to see my brother,” Sam growled. Lucifer and Castiel spread out on either side of Sam, almost filling the small room. If things got messy, there wouldn’t be a lot of room to maneuver, and it was making Lucifer uneasy.

 

“Now, Sam, you know I can’t do that. If you want your brother, you have to give up the book first.” He gestured to the bundle underneath Sam’s arm.

 

“No,” Sam said. “I want to know he’s still alive before I hand it over.”

 

“Or, we could just kill you and take the Book,” the desk percher sneered.

 

“Kelsey,” the leader said, admonishment clear in his tone.

 

“Sorry, Uncle,” Kelsey apologized.

 

Sighing, the as yet nameless man picked up a tablet (Sam had explained what they were to Lucifer) and tapped a few keys before turning it around and showing them Dean. It wasn’t the same video feed, the light and angle were different and there were now two guards stationed on either side of him. Dean was staring blankly ahead but his chest was moving up and down, so he was breathing.

 

“Satisfied?”

 

Sam nodded and the man held out his hand. “The Book, please. Then you can collect your brother whenever you choose.”

 

Lucifer stayed still up until the moment Sam slid the book into his hand. In a lightning quick move, Sam threw the book as hard as he could at the tall body guard’s head, and Lucifer charged him hardly a moment later.

 

Unfortunately, the guard was actually trained quite well. He recovered quickly enough to narrowly avoid Lucifer’s first lunge, which was inconvenient, but hardly an issue. Not giving him a chance to get his balance back, Lucifer quickly reversed his momentum. He flipped his blade around in the process and threw himself backwards into the man, stabbing and pinning him to the wall in one motion.

 

Sam’s scream of “No!” brought his attention back to the rest of the room. Castiel had taken out Kelsey, the man’s eyes still smoking. Sam was pointing his gun at the uncle, who was holding up a phone in triumph in one hand, the other one clutching his stomach where it looked like he had been shot.

 

“It’s too late! Your brother should be let loose any second now. Speaking of any second now…”

 

Suddenly, a loud shrill ring sounded through the office and the man grinned maniacally.

 

“The halls will be filled with innocent children, just in time.”

 

Sam’s face smoothed out and without another word, he shot the man between the eyes.

 

“Come on,” he yelled, gesturing for them to follow. “We have to get to Dean before he hurts anyone.”

 

* * *

 

Sam didn’t know how long it would take for whatever they did to Dean to take effect, but he had a feeling not long. They were trying to make their way as quickly as they could through the throngs of high schoolers roaming the halls, and were being mostly successful due to their height but there were still too many for his liking.

 

Furtively searching the walls, he spotted what he was looking for and prayed that this was a good idea.

 

“Keep going,” he ordered the other two and he made his way to the fire alarm, pulling the switch as soon as he reached it.

 

Immediately, a shrill sound split the air, making everyone wince but not race for the exits like he wanted.

 

“Everyone out!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Don’t just stand there, go!”

 

Finally, it seemed that they understood what was happening. A couple teachers came out into the hallway and began ushering the students down the hall towards the nearest exit.

 

He made his way towards the gym, eventually catching up with Lucifer and Cas just as they all heard screams coming from around the next corner.

 

They spread out into a V formation, Sam at the head, with Lucifer and Cas to his sides. As they rounded the corner into the next corridor, Sam felt sick at the sight that met them.

 

Dean was at the far end of the hall, a little ways away from the gym doors, holding a bloodied machete someone had given him. At his feet was the body of what looked like an older man, most likely a teacher. Another teacher, a young woman, was holding her hands up in front of her, trying to reason with him. Kids were screaming all around them, a couple had pulled out their phones, and he made a mental note to get Charlie to wipe everything later.

 

“Cas!” Sam shouted, pointing towards his brother. With a flap of wings, Cas was standing between the woman and Dean, and with a flick of his wrist, the hunter was sent flying backwards.

 

“Keep him busy! Lucifer,” Sam turned towards him, incredibly thankful that he was here. “Help me get these children out of here.”

 

He turned to his side of the hallway and started shouting and gesturing, “Everyone get out! Go, go, go!” He wrapped his arm around the teacher, eyeing the way Castiel was slowly stalking towards his brother.

 

“Come on, get your students out of here,” he said, urging her forward.

 

He turned, just in time to see a young boy fly past him through the air and land in the rapidly decreasing crowd.

 

Confused, he spun around to see Lucifer beginning to pick up another struggling high schooler, apparently having decided it was quicker to clear the hallway himself instead of wait for them to listen.

 

“Lucifer, stop,” he hissed, pulling the kid from his hands and pushing him around the corner. “You can’t just toss children!” Turning towards the few stragglers, he growled, “Everyone out, NOW!”

 

With the help of the teacher, the hallway was practically empty.

 

But when is life ever that easy for the Winchesters?

 

From the opposite end of the hall, the double doors swung open and a group of Styne bodyguards streamed towards them.

 

“Dammit.” Glancing behind them, Sam saw Castiel was still struggling to stop Dean from advancing without hurting him.

 

“Come on,” Lucifer said, swinging his blade around. Nodding, Sam pulled out Ruby’s knife, and together they descended into the fray.

 

Fighting multiple opponents was never fun. On a quick count, Sam had thought there was about ten of them. Punches flew, flesh tore, and he had only taken a few hits before a shout of “Sam!” distracted them all.

 

Standing behind the group of men, apparently waiting for a chance to enter without opposition, stood Rowena and Charlie.

 

The younger redhead was holding a bowl, while Rowena held what looked like the book in one hand, and was waving her other over the bowl, chanting something quickly. There was a flash and a boom, which seemed unnecessarily showy, but then he heard a grunt behind him.

 

Dean was laid out flat on the ground, completely unmoving.

 

“You only have about five seconds, Luci, you better go!” Charlie yelled, before dropping the bowl and crouching into a fighting stance to combat the advancing Stynes.

 

Without hesitation, Lucifer sprinted over and Sam just had time to see him slam his hand down onto Dean’s chest before having to duck from an oncoming punch.

 

* * *

 

“Go help Sam,” Lucifer commanded Castiel, before slamming one hand down on Dean’s chest and gripping his arm over the Mark with the other.

 

This part was gonna be tricky. He was going to have to untangle the tendrils of the Mark’s control from Dean’s soul in order to absorb it back into himself.

 

Closing his eyes, he took the small amount of grace allowed to him, and pushed it through both points of contact. Following the spiraling darkness of the Mark’s influence deep into Dean’s soul, he began using his grace to disentangle it. He was attempting to burrow past the many recent layers of anger and hatred, calling out to the original construct underneath, urging it to come back to its creator.

 

Lucifer was shocked at how easily the Mark was relinquishing its hold on Dean. Once he got past the initial waves of fury, it practically dove back into his grace. He frowned. This shouldn’t be so easy. Dean had been under the Mark’s influence for a long time. Not only should the Mark be more difficult to remove, Dean’s soul should be tainted with it, holding on to it, like a drug addict.

 

Continuing to absorb the Mark, Lucifer sunk deeper, trying to find the core of Dean’s soul and see if the explanation could be found there.

 

Father, was it ever.

 

The center of Dean’s soul, the brightest, most pure part of it, was wrapped tightly and protectively in a piece of Castiel’s grace.

 

His brother’s grace was fighting the Mark’s influence, deflecting any attempts made to get at the pure essence of Dean, and Lucifer couldn’t help but watch for a moment, mesmerized.

 

Being able to turn him back into a human now made so much more sense. No way could that kind of darkness take true root in someone protected by an angel’s grace. And Castiel’s wasn’t just protecting the human, it was claiming ownership. When Lucifer brushed against it, curious, it pulsed back a heated warning of _mine_ , and he quickly backed off. He was suddenly very grateful that Dean had never said yes to Michael. That wouldn’t have ended well for anyone.

 

He wondered in amusement if Castiel had ever told his little hunter they were grace bound. He doubted it.

 

His curiosity satisfied, he quickly finished up his mission, drawing the last bits of the curse out of Dean’s body and soul.

 

When he opened his eyes, he felt the swirl of power beneath his skin and took a deep breath to appreciate it. The Mark didn’t give him anywhere near even a warrior angel’s grace level, let alone his own. But it was enough to take out the rest of the Stynes in the hallway.

 

Or, it could be enough to manifest his wings long enough to escape.

 

Flying was second nature to angels. It wouldn’t take much of his new surge of power at all, and he’d have enough leftover to survive until he could find a new power source.

 

He considered it for all of three seconds.

 

Then a sharp cry of pain from Sam made his decision.

 

Turning around, he took in the scene quickly. Rowena was gone, Charlie was in a one on one match with one of the Stynes, further down the hall. She looked to be holding her own. Castiel was fending off three opponents, distracted by trying to get to Sam. Sam, who was being held against a row of lockers by a man larger than him, the air being choked out of him.

 

In an instant, Lucifer was at Sam’s side, reaching a hand up to the man’s forehead and smiting him. He didn’t pause as the man fell, just turned towards the other three and strode forward with purpose. He managed to get two of them fairly quickly, the other one running towards Dean at the end of the hall.

 

Well that wasn’t his smartest idea, Lucifer thought mildly, as he watched Castiel skewer the man before he got too close to Dean.

 

He flicked his wrist and pinned Charlie’s opponent against the wall, enjoying the fear in his eyes as Lucifer walked up and casually smote him.

 

He heard a low “whoa” behind him and turned to see Charlie looking at him in awe.

 

“That was badass, dude.”

 

He opened his mouth to respond but stopped when he felt a sharp tug behind his throat. He began to feel the remaining power from the Mark being pulled and tucked beneath the binding.

 

Well, that’s annoying but good to know.

 

Humming, he gestured for Charlie to follow him to where Sam and Castiel were propping up Dean between them, the eldest Winchester quite disoriented. Getting a closer look at Sam, he saw that there were bruises already appearing around his neck along with scrapes and bruises peppering his face. Frowning, Lucifer reached forward and healed him while he could.

 

Sam looked at him in surprise and then smiled. “Thanks, man. I guess you still got some power, huh?”

 

“Not much. It’s in the process of being bound as we speak.”

 

“Not to interrupt or anything, guys,” Charlie piped up, “but the spell Rowena and I cast to confuse the cops is only gonna last like another two minutes and then this place will be crawling with law enforcement. We should really go while the gettin’s good.”

 

Castiel nodded. “I will transport Dean and Sam to the car and then return for you two.” With that, he disappeared with the brothers.

 

Blinking, Lucifer looked down at Charlie with a frown.

 

“Did you call me ‘Luci’?”


	11. Chapter 11

Sam ended up being the one who drove them all back to the bunker.

 

Dean was still a little out of it, and he sat in the back seat between Charlie and Cas, his head resting on the angel’s shoulder with their hands entwined. Lucifer had suggested it (after whispering something in Castiel’s ear that made him blush) and seemed to think the contact would help Dean get acclimated to not having the Mark quicker.

 

Sam was just happy Dean was ok and just out of it enough not to complain about the arrangement.

 

Charlie was furiously combing the internet to find any reference of them on social media, as well as hacking any security cameras at the school.

 

Glancing over at Lucifer, who was staring straight out the windshield, he cleared his throat.

 

“So,” he began.

 

“So,” Lucifer parroted back after he didn’t continue.

 

“Guess it sucks, all that power being bound like the rest of your grace, huh?” Sam cringed internally. Way to be super awkward about it.

 

Shrugging, Lucifer answered “Not particularly. It was helpful at the time, and I won’t lie and tell you I didn’t enjoy the sensation. But,” and here he turned fully to look at Sam and that was probably the softest he’d ever seen him look.

 

“I’m not upset it’s bound. I’m quite content with where I am now and I hope you’ll continue to let me stay with you.”

 

“Yeah, man, of course. I mean, we’re gonna need your help, that’s for sure. We still have the rest of the Styne’s out there and they know where the bunker is now, so we’ll have to do something about that. Rowena is gone with the Book of the Damned-”

 

“But not with my cipher, so she can’t do much with it,” Charlie interjected.

 

“-plus we’ll still have the occasional monster of the week. So, yeah. Uh. You’re totally welcome to stay, is what I’m saying. That was never in question.”

 

“Good,” Lucifer said, and Sam could clearly hear the amusement in his tone.

 

After a few minutes, Lucifer looked in the back seat and Sam could see him frowning in thought.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

Lucifer looked back at him with the same face. Then slowly, cautiously, he inched his hand forward to take hold of Sam’s. His breath hitched, but he didn’t pull away.

 

“Is this… okay?” Lucifer asked tentatively.

 

It was exhilarating. Terrifying. Amazing. Impossible.

 

“Yeah,” he finally answered. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

 

It looked like the future was gonna be pretty interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading! :)


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